OCTET PROJECT, 12 pieces for fl, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone & contrabass

An arrangement of Igor Stravinsky's wildly fun and virtuosic Piano-Rag-Music, for flute (picc), oboe, E-flat clarinet, bassoon, F horn, B-flat cornet, tenorbass trombone & contrabass (Should be played by heart, and w/o conductor).

The Piano-Rag-Music is a part of my ongoing OCTET PROTECT, which includes at present a set of 12 pieces, all for the basic OCTANDRE ensemble of eight. For more INFOR & MATERIALS, go to my website at:

http://www.cs-music.com/octet

Piano-Rag-Music webscore http://bit.ly/ID2QqC
score pdf http://bit.ly/1bbUfks
parts pdf http://bit.ly/ID36pJ
performance model mp3 http://bit.ly/1eElHvr

For rehearsal/study/performance help, email to cliff@picture-poems.com. Or SKYPE me at "cliffcrego" anytime. I'm also a wilderness photographer, so be patient and persistent is I happen to be out of my Office in Oregon for a few weeks.

OCTET PROJECT: Igor Stravinsky's Piano-Rag-Music (1919), arr. by CLIFF CREGO

Jaehyuck Choi (1994) - Signal (2022)
for soprano saxophone and trombone (2022)

Live at Concours Nicati 2023
26.08.2023

Duo Signal 
Alejandro Oliván - soprano saxophone
Adrián Albaladejo Díaz - trombone

https://www.duosignal.net/

Audio recording: Christophe Egea
Audio mix and mastering: Clément Marie

Salquin Konzertsaal, Hochschule Luzern-Musik

Jaehyuck Choi - Signal (2022) - live, Luzern - 26.08.2023

Special thanks to my good friend, Simone de HAAN, Australian new music trombonist extraordinaire…I couldn’t have done this project without his help.

“What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.”

TEXT of Bertrand Russell’s Last letter used here is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/russells-last-letter.pdf

Feel free to make your own, I am sure, much better performance of the text. The track for the orchestral background (minus voice) is here:  http://picture-poems.com/mp3/russell_no-voice.wav

IMAGE: Bertrand RUSSELL, 1957

RUSSELL’S 1970 LAST LETTER, a call for peace in the Middle East

PHOTO: YUM CHENMO--"Great Wisdom Mother" at EWAM, Garden of 1000 Buddhas, Jocko Valley, Arlee, Montana

SEE TEXT at: http://picture-poems.com/photoweek/1000-buddhas_9-29-10_8bw.html

RETWEET #buddhism A QUESTION OF #NONVIOLENCE, OR NON-EXISTENCE—a meditation pdf [140k] http://bit.ly/1nkSlvg mp3 [3.7Mb] http://bit.ly/1nkSjDB

A QUESTION OF NON-VIOLENCE, OR NON-EXISTENCE,  a meditation . . .

PHOTO: Arinica (Arnica montana) & Butterfly, the Alps

POSTER is at: http://www.cs-music.com/features/cards/poster_sonnet-XIV-2.html

POSTER pdf is at: http://www.cs-music.com/features/cards/poster_sonnet-XIV-2.pdf

DOWNLOAD: #FreeFriday RILKE IN THE WALLOWAS 80 new tr. & 120 photos, by CLIFF CREGO pdf 212 p/ 208 Mb http://bit.ly/mA3Ly7

RILKE: Sonnets to Orpheus, XIV [second part], German/English, tr. Cliff Crego

The second in a set of 12 pieces for OCTET, inspired by OCTANDRE, by Edgard Varèse, and intended to be "seed pieces" for a new kind of ensemble & performance practice.  SEE website for INFO, scores, pdfs, parts, mp3s, etc. at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet

GO TO webscore for iPad at: http://cs-music.com/octet/octet_stone-on-stone_1.html

DOWNLOAD score at: http://cs-music.com/octet/octet_stone-on-stone.pdf

DOWNLOAD parts at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_stone-on-stone_parts.pdf

from OCTET PROJECT, "Stone on Stone"

SEE INTRO at: http://cs-music.com/octet/intro_octet_rally-on-7th.html It's ironic that this is a protest piece, written after witnessing the massive demonstration in NYC at the 2004 Republican Convention. Who was running back then? Oh yes, George the 2nd. How we go on....

iPad WEBSCORE: http://bit.ly/1uhCZdZ DOWNLOAD score pdf: http://bit.ly/1E9Z9jn PARTS pdf: http://bit.ly/1uhCYXr

GO TO another OCTET Project companion piece, "Stone on Stone," on Soundcloud http://bit.ly/1wStmRM



from OCTET PROJECT, "Rally on 7th Avenue" performance model

INTRO/website for the OCTET Project is at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet CHORALE is intended as the companion to the clarinet MOZART concertino arr. [score pdf http://bit.ly/1tUVseg ] One of the central ideas of the OCTET Project is balance. Balance of living sound. To create new repertoire for a the new kind of earthed, grounded, sostenuto, intensely poetic / vocal sound.

After years of New Music performance, I've come to see the specialized contemporary music group as a kind of ghetto. A place where the sun never shines. A place where you'd never want to hang out, let alone live, well, unless you happened to be specialized in contemporary music. 

I think we need something new. So I started making not so much pieces, but more open source projects, for specific groups or ensembles. They are meant to be WORK SPACES, to tear them apart, study them, sing them, learn them by heart, play them without music and without conductor. 

This approach is based on projects I did with the ASKO Ensemble in AMSTERDAM. One that especially comes to mind is performing the Varèse, OCTANDRE, in this way. It took two months of intensive rehearsals to learn, and set a whole new standard. When you walk out on the stage like this as a collective -- naked, as it were -- people KNOW you are serious, serious about yourselves as orchestra, and serious about the music you are going to play. It's like climbing a mountain without ropes and oxygen, a mountain they said could never be climbed. Well, once you do it, the world is a different place.

GO TO iPad webscore: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_chorale-1.html
DOWNLOAD score pdf: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_chorale.pdf
DOWNLOAD B-flat clarinet part pdf: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_chorale-solo-cl.pdf
DOWNLOAD set of parts pdf: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_chorale_parts.pdf




from OCTET PROJECT, "Chorale," w/ solo clarinet, performance model

GO TO iPad webscore: http://bit.ly/1s1Jm4j INTRO 4 CONCERTINO http://bit.ly/1wS6kGo SCORE pdf: http://bit.ly/1s1JFvI

GO TO solo violin webpage: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_c-concerto_vl-1.html

DOWNLOAD solo violin part pdf: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_c-concerto_vl.pdf

DOWNLOAD solo violin performance model mp3 [11' 4.3Mb] http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_c-concerto-vl.mp3

DOWNLOAD set of parts pdf: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_chorale_parts.pdf

INTRO/website for the OCTET Project is at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet

from OCTET PROJECT, "Concertino," w/ solo violin, performance model

THIS IS A STUDY piece for my OCTET Project. [Please forgive a few wrong notes in the model...] It's inspired by the WEBERN-BACH Ricercare a 6 voci, one of the hardest pieces I've ever conducted. The challenge is to find and develop a resonant, vocal style of playing as ensemble. And that in a composite texture which is at once simple & complex, at once open [naked] & dense. The problem is that each individual has to know the whole, which is generally not the case if we rush or "end-gain" a piece to concert performance, or become dependent on a conductor. The only really factor keeping us from working this way, it seems to me, is "time" or its contemporary equivalent, "money." If each of the eight players learns to study the score, and the BACH original, by singing all the voices, playing it on a keyboard, making multitrack recordings, etc., a new sense of ensemble sound and performance will very quickly unfold. 

WEBSCORE is at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach_b-minor_1.html
DOWNLOAD score pdf is at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach_b-minor.pdf
DOWNLOAD parts at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach_b-minor_parts.pdf
DOWNLOAD performance model mp3 at: http://www.cs-music.com/octet/octet_bach-b-minor.mp3

The idea is to OCTET Project is to set a new standard. LISTEN, for example, to this recording of the WEBERN-BACH below. In my view, with all due respect to the great musicians playing, it's imbalanced in almost every way. Just a mess, really. See what you think....What I'm critical of is NOT the individuals playing, but rather the performance practice itself, as a whole.

♫ BOULEZ plays WEBERN-BACH Ricercare a 6 voci (1935), London http://bit.ly/1zU2lv9 


from OCTET PROJECT, "Arr. BACH fugue in b minor [no. 24 book I] performance model

A 17 seventeen-step poem is a kind of generalized HAIKU. How it is notated in the score isn’t relevant. Only the 17 steps as we hear/sense/feel them as a dance, a pattern of movement, is important.

A SEQUENCE strings 17 of these seventeen-step poems together, like strings of lights on a Christmas tree. Each string has a different color or theme or center.

There are 17 SEQUENCES. Here, we hear the first nine.

Each numbered pattern we hear is a single image or experience from a bike packing pilgrimage made through the mountains of IDAHO and OREGON. 120 days / 80 camps. Many more, new special places and new friends.

TEXT of SEQUENCES I through XI… (rough draft…) is at http://www.picture-poems.com/pdfs/lost-in-idaho.pdf

IMAGE: My bike packing rig, MISSOULA. I cache the bike, and periodically change over to boots and backpack for wilderness photography work, and then hike back out to my bike.

LOST IN IDAHO, A pilgrim’s notebook….Sequences I through IX

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG3XXq8_01w

The immediate inspiration for my 'Fragment 16 (Xenogothic Triple Canon)' was a piece by the composer Matt Barber (https://soundcloud.com/brbrofsvl ) titled 'Prelude and Canon for Wind Quintet' ( which you can listen to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhKDdcFm8l0 ). The title belies his piece's compositional virtuosity: the canon is in five different superimposed speeds, and uses late romantic tonal language. It caused quite a stir at Eastman when it was first played there, despite its short length. Matt's musicianship has been inspirational to me since I was 18 years old, and in some ways I feel like I am always several steps behind him. So I also wanted to write a polytempic canon in a historical contrapuntal style, and Avignon around 1370 was my target.

I failed, quickly: my piece is not strictly in three different consistent speeds (much too difficult), but the melodies in each voice, otherwise all direct copies of one another, do get pervasively pushed and pulled like taffy into and out of shifting speeds. I partly attribute my failure to my beloved teacher, Jean-François Charles, who suggested “Why not write a canon at the [melodic distance of a] 7th? ”, suggesting that canons at the 5th and octave were rather passé. I took him up on this, but it made life harder. For example, for technical reasons, descending scales were now basically off limits, and descending sixths become sort-of necessary as an escape hatch, both features which were uncommon in the melodic style of the medieval period. Nevertheless, it was great fun getting the piece to sound as 'medieval' as possible given these constraints. I can't take credit for the coinage 'Xenogothic'; that honor belongs to microtonal theorist and composer Margo Schulter (https://www.bestii.com/~mschulter/QuickTour.html). Please look up her and Matt's music if you get the chance.

Thanks to the JACK Quartet  for this wonderful performance.

Fragment 16 (Xenogothic Triple Canon)

In the silence of the night, the bubo bubo releases its voice into the valley with all its majesty; its depth rivals that of the night itself.

recorded at midnight in Niğde Aladağlar, April 30, 2025

Bubo Bubo (Eagle Owl) Aladaglar, Emli Vadisi

Pied Butcherbird song at dawn, accompanied by White-winged Fairywren, Trillers, Miners, Emu booms,  Magpies et al, in the NSW outback near Lightning Ridge

Pied Butcherbird Sunrise Recital

Water loss on land adds to rising seas: global drying with gravity satellite expert Jay Famiglietti.  Is this planet actually a living cooperative? Explore with science journalist Ferris Jabr. Expect abrupt shifts in big systems, from ocean currents to ice - new science led by Sjoerd Terpstra.  Three interviews.

Global drying, Gaia & Abrupt Change

σαν της αυγής ονείρατα και σκιάχτρα σαν της νύχτας (like dreams of the dawn and scarecrows of the night) • for soprano, accordion & marimba • a sound illustration on poetry by Kostis Palamas • composed by Christos Farmakis in 2020

0:00 Σιωπή | Silence
2:25 Μάγισσες αρμέγουν το φεγγάρι | Witches milking the moon
5:24 Βροχή από αίμα | Rain of blood

performed by KIMI ensemble • https://www.kimi-ensemble.com/
Þórgunnur Anna Örnólfsdóttir • soprano
Katerina Anagnostidou • marimba
Jónas Ásgeirsson • accordion

http://christosfarmakis.com/

like dreams of the dawn and scarecrows of the night

Composer. Writer. Photographer. Former conductor & founder of the ASKO ensemble.

On a bike/ski/hike trek of the Pacific Northwest studying native plants & climate breakdown 🌲 from sagebrush sea to whitebark pine. Composing off-grid the whole way.

#Sun2Sound 🌕 on Bluesky

THINKING LIKE A STONEPINE, a soundpoem manifesto https://vimeo.com/844665859

“LOVE & WATER, three thought poems w/ coda, PHAROS for small orchestra, “Nightwind”” https://vimeo.com/847079690 

CURRENTLY on mt bike/ski/climbing trek through Pacific Northwest, working on a photobook about WHITEBARK PINE COLLAPSE and CLIMATE CRISIS. BASES in the WALLOWAS | AMSTERDAM | ALPS. 

WEEKLY photo/poetry updates at www.picture-poems.com & THE CIRCLE IN THE SQUARE new music, poetry & dance performance project at www.cs-music.com

ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT for progressive, tech-savy, instrumental virtuosi interested in dialogue & collaborative undertakings.

CONTACT cliff@picture-opoems.com
Or on SKYPE or FACETIME @cliffcrego

MUSIC? The one thing humans do,
that makes the rest of nature jealous.

from OCTET PROJECT, "Arr. BACH fugue in b minor [no. 24 book I] performance model

Cliff Crego

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