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

The motives that evoke butterflies are the same ones that create the storm.

Butterfly Wings And Tropical Storms

An international, trans-disciplinary team of researchers travels to Thessaloniki, Greece to capture the ethereal sounds of ancient Byzantine churches and collect the "Google Earth" of sound.

Episode 1 "Acoustic Museums"

A 6 minute solo viola competition piece commissioned for the 2013 Irving M. Klein International String Competition and here given a blisteringly brilliant performance by former winner Teng Li (Principal Viola, Toronto Symphony)at National Sawdust on January 13, 2016. The work is a virtuosic, intense, shattered scherzo-like piece with echoes of Beethoven. The score is available through Grey Bird Music. To see a perusal score: https://issuu.com/joelphillipfriedman/docs/friedman_viola_whentheworlddisinteg

When The World Disintegrates Before Your Eyes - Teng Li

The Desert

Est-ce qu'on s'aimera

Murmurations is inspired by those amazing flight-patterns of starlings.
Starlings are great mimics and are incredibly intelligent. They can also ravage a crop in minutes and leave behind a mountain of poop. That explains why they aren’t very popular.
However, Mozart thought they were wonderful and had one as a pet for years. He had just finished his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G when he heard a starling in a market actually whistling the tune from the 3rd movement. So he purchased the bird and gave it a loving home. That theme is quoted at the beginning of this piece.

Murmurations

Using text from Salman Rushdie’s novel 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' and from abbreviated versions of the Latin Mass, Keys to the Unseen examines the subject of music itself. Two of its parts, Kyrie and Sanctus, refer to music from the past that survives in our consciousness and continues to exert an influence on the way we hear things today. If We Were Worthy of the World is about the transcendent power of singing and its uneasy connection with what used to be called the sacred. 

Instrumentation:
For children’s chorus, mixed chorus, strings, organ, vibraphone.

This work was premiered on February 6, 2000 during the '4 Choirs in Concert' presented by Soundstreams at St. Patrick's Church in Toronto, Canada

For more information about Randolph Peters and his work, please visit our SoundMakers website: http://www.soundmakers.ca/composers/randolph-peters



Murmurations

randolphpeters

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