Bright Star II (2016)
for singing percussionist, or percussion and voice (Bb3-Bb4)
Text by John Keats
Duration: 4:15
For Colleen Phelps
Percussion included: Two unpitched gongs, C crotale, two triangles, two suspended cymbals.
Text by John Keats
Duration: 4:15
For Colleen Phelps
Percussion included: Two unpitched gongs, C crotale, two triangles, two suspended cymbals.
Notes
I met Colleen Phelps at New Music Gathering 2017 at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. We talked a little bit about the kinds of things that interested us, and played each other some clips of our respective work. I knew that I wanted to write a piece for Colleen, and she was interested, too. I wanted to make a piece for her in which she could play and sing at the same time.
When I asked her for any ideas of what she was looking for, she gave me a few ideas. The one that really caught my attention was her interest in pieces about the cosmos, stars, planets, etc. I immediately thought of my piece Bright Star for mixed chorus and vibraphone. That piece is on a text by my friend Shannon Berry. Shannon's poem was inspired by the poem of the same name by John Keats and the work of Sandro Botticelli. I thought to myself, wouldn't be cool if this new piece used the original Keats poem, but were based on my setting of Shannon's poem? The material for Bright Star II is almost completely new, but there are a few ideas that exist in both pieces.
I knew that I wanted to use all metal instruments for the piece, but I wanted to use them in a way that was more delicate and "twinkly." Colleen told me what instruments she had, so I settled on a set from what she had access to, and what I thought other percussionists might have easy access to.
At first, when I was working on a setting of the Keats, I was feeling uninspired by how relatively "square" everything was, at least compared to Shannon's poem. I set the poem to an intentionally simple, unaccompanied vocal line, with occasional hits of the C crotale to help solidify the tonic. It was too short, though, and I wasn't coming up with any good ideas for what to do with the percussion part. I started playing around with the text a bit. Part of my playing involved putting the words of the poem in alphabetical order. I was struck, when reading the alphabetized poem aloud, by how exciting the repeated text was in context. That started to suggest a rhythm to me. I also looked back at the melody I had already written, and I noticed a pattern was developing with the time between crotale strikes. I shifted things around a bit to make the pattern fit better, and used the numbers suggested by the pattern in my composition of the first part, with the spoken alphabetized poem. Finally, with the first part done, I chose ideas from the first half and incorporated them into the second half, pairing the sounds with the same words from the first half.
When I asked her for any ideas of what she was looking for, she gave me a few ideas. The one that really caught my attention was her interest in pieces about the cosmos, stars, planets, etc. I immediately thought of my piece Bright Star for mixed chorus and vibraphone. That piece is on a text by my friend Shannon Berry. Shannon's poem was inspired by the poem of the same name by John Keats and the work of Sandro Botticelli. I thought to myself, wouldn't be cool if this new piece used the original Keats poem, but were based on my setting of Shannon's poem? The material for Bright Star II is almost completely new, but there are a few ideas that exist in both pieces.
I knew that I wanted to use all metal instruments for the piece, but I wanted to use them in a way that was more delicate and "twinkly." Colleen told me what instruments she had, so I settled on a set from what she had access to, and what I thought other percussionists might have easy access to.
At first, when I was working on a setting of the Keats, I was feeling uninspired by how relatively "square" everything was, at least compared to Shannon's poem. I set the poem to an intentionally simple, unaccompanied vocal line, with occasional hits of the C crotale to help solidify the tonic. It was too short, though, and I wasn't coming up with any good ideas for what to do with the percussion part. I started playing around with the text a bit. Part of my playing involved putting the words of the poem in alphabetical order. I was struck, when reading the alphabetized poem aloud, by how exciting the repeated text was in context. That started to suggest a rhythm to me. I also looked back at the melody I had already written, and I noticed a pattern was developing with the time between crotale strikes. I shifted things around a bit to make the pattern fit better, and used the numbers suggested by the pattern in my composition of the first part, with the spoken alphabetized poem. Finally, with the first part done, I chose ideas from the first half and incorporated them into the second half, pairing the sounds with the same words from the first half.