Triple Trombone Concerto

 

Triple Trombone Concerto (2001) was written at the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The work is set to display the trombone section of the symphony orchestra (two tenor trombones and one bass trombone). All the woodwind instruments have been removed from the orchestra so that there are only strings and percussion to accompany the soloists. Rutherford's Rag is a slow concert ragtime piece named after the trombone player who commissioned the work. John Rutherford was a good friend of mine back when we were in music school together at the University of Michigan. This rag is a tribute to my friend. Angela?s Waltz is a beautiful, flowing waltz-like work named after one of my loves. There are open sonorities throughout, calling attention to the music of Aaron Copland at times. Just past the center of the piece there is a brutal section of atonality, making way for the harmonic relief which takes us to the conclusion of the movement. Gallop is a set of cowboy dances and evokes the American wild west in a similar way to the film scores of old western movies. The work also shares a syntax with Aaron Copland?s ballets Billy the Kid and Rodeo. There are no outlaw characters in Gallop...instead, the hero is a good man, a free man. He is the proto-typical cowboy moving his way across the mountainous, sun-drenched West ? a man who knows the land as the coyotes know the moon.