Score and more info:
http://pronovamusic.com/notes/ridgeline.html

Ridgeline was composed in the spring of 2023 for premiere by Michael Stern and the National Repertory Orchestra at the opening concert of their 30th season at the Riverwalk Center in Breckenridge, Colorado. The music is inspired by the ridgeline of mountain peaks visible from Breckenridge, particularly Peaks 6-10, which make up the town’s ski area. The quiet sunrise opening of the piece imagines rays of sun sneaking through clouds and distant creaks of ice or perhaps mining machinery starting up. Introductory calls are heard from solo winds and brass. The music gradually picks up steam and is inspired by various activities in the mountains during the history of Breckenridge, including mining during the Gold Rush (listen for the panning/sifting), development of a vibrant town (a bit of fiddlin’), and recently, skiing (“white gold”) and climbers scrambling along the ridges. More specifically, some of the musical ingredients of the piece include short motifs from a couple Gold Rush songs (which I may or may not reveal!) and one from Snake Alley, a work I composed for the NRO back in 1989, prior to the move to Breckenridge. The ridgeline of Peaks 6-10 is reflected both literally – in rhythms and harmonies derived from the peaks’ distances and elevations – and more generally in many melodic contours reflective of the mountain range. The work dances to a close with vivid colors of a brilliant sunset at day's end (and the miner's hopes fading away...).

This is a MIDI realization demo recording, made in Dorico with NotePerformer.

Ridgeline for orchestra, 2024 revision

This is a MIDI preview until the live recording is available.  Note that the "feathered" beaming rhythms in the central slow part are NOT well-realized in this MIDI version.  (stiff/square rather than fluid/expressive)  :). A perusal score is available here:
https://pronovamusic.com/notes/PV.html


Program note:

Prismatic Variations was composed for a series of concerts by the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music New Music Ensemble in Bloomington and Seoul, South Korea, in March 2026. Supported by Dean Abra Bush, the project unites current students, faculty, and alumni in creating eight new works on the theme of connection, celebrating the strong and enduring musical bonds between South Korea and the Jacobs School. IU faculty violinist Kyung Sun Lee performs the solo violin part on tour, joined by cellist Kangho Lee (K-Arts) and violist Yoon Kyung Shin (Kookmin University) in Seoul, and cellist Eric Kim (IU faculty) in Bloomington. The work’s primary motifs—derived from the soloists’ names and translated into pitches using French and German pitch-letter conventions—form an octatonic scale, symmetrically alternating half and whole steps. This, together with the acoustic scale drawn from the harmonic series, shapes the work’s harmonic language. The piece opens with a theme of two extended phrases presenting the main ideas, followed by fourteen variations in a fast–slow–fast design. The title, borrowed from Donald Erb, evokes the play of light through a prism—musical reflections, refractions, and diffractions of its motivic ideas.

David Dzubay, October 2025

Prismatic Variations (preview)

David Dzubay has received commissions from Meet the Composer, Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts, the US-Mexico Fund for Culture, and the Fromm and Barlow foundations, among others. Recent honors include Guggenheim, Bogliasco, MacDowell, Yaddo, Copland House and Djerassi fellowships, a 2011 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the 2010 Heckscher Prize and the 2015 Sackler Prize. His music has been performed by orchestras, ensembles and soloists in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Asia, and is published by Pro Nova Music and recorded on the Sony, Bridge, Centaur, Innova, Naxos, Crystal, Klavier, Gia, and First Edition labels. Currently chair of the Composition Department and Director of the New Music Ensemble at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Dzubay also spent three years as Composer-Consultant to the Minnesota Orchestra and one as Composer-in-Residence with the Green Bay Symphony. He joined the faculty at the Brevard Music Center in summer 2011.

Prismatic Variations (preview)

David Dzubay

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