Andrew Sigler - Alquimia (piano)

A toe in the vat of electronic music. Also my first electronic work. More to come!

Prelude

Three Cheers is one of several pieces I wrote in response to my grandfather’s passing. The piece is intended to be a synthesis of a spiritual presence taking the form of porch wind chimes as represented in the piece by vibraphones. Initially, the vibraphones have a lack of synchronization rhythmically and harmonically. This discussion of sorts is mediated by melodic lines in the violin that ultimately fuse the vibraphone textures to quote Stars and Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa: “Three cheers for the red, white and blue.” This quote is especially haunting as it is intended to mimic the playing of this historic music on piano by a family member at my grandfather’s funeral. As it represented a goodbye at his memorial service, so too does this quote represent a goodbye in the music. Without resolving as the music does in Stars in Stripes Forever, the vibraphones fall out of synchronization and meet by chance on a final peaceful harmony.

Three Cheers (In Memoriam)

Mirage Bazaar is a String Quartet I composed in the Summer of 2016. This is a piece of program music, a piece of music which is meant to tell a story, or portray a mood or feeling. The inspiration behind the piece came from the idea of this wanderer who becomes desperately lost while exploring the desert. Being without water for quite a while the wanderer becomes dehydrated. Night falls. Deliriously, the wanderer climbs to the top of a sand dune to see a lively bazaar in the middle of the barren landscape. This piece is the unfolding of the wanderer’s journey through this hallucination. The primary theme is introduced following a brief thematic introduction. This theme is the basis of the entire piece, constituting the mass majority of the inner workings of the music. From the use of thematic retrograde (the melody appearing backwards) to rhythmic augmentation (the melody appearing twice as long) the primary theme is manipulated and distorted throughout the entire piece in many ways. In the B section the mood of the music shifts as the wanderer is cast into a deep sleep. With eyes closed, the protagonist can hear the sounds of the bazaar happening all around them, and through their delusion the penetrating voice of the sorceress appears; trying to coax the wanderer from their deep slumber (through use of a 12-tone row). Suddenly! The wanderer is pulled from their sleep to find the bazaar is being swallowed into the earth around them. As the sun rises the wanderer races to the top of the crumbling dunes just as the bazaar is plunged down into the desert sand.

Mirage Bazaar for String Quartet; John Philip Sessions, Composer.

Premiered at the Ann E. Pitzer Center in Davis, California on 4/12/17
Harp - Jennifer Ellis
Electronic patch built by Derek Kwan in Pure Data

Three Cheers (In Memoriam)

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John Sessions

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