Inner Sky

 

This composition was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation for SONOR, New Millenium Ensemble, and the Indiana University New Music Ensemble and first composed in 1993-94. Major revisions were made to the work in the fall, 1999. The work is scored for flutist doubling piccolo, alto and bass flutes, with percussion, piano, string ensemble, and four-channels of computer processed flute sounds. Over the past number of years my music has used poetic imagery as a vehicle for formal and expressive abstraction in the making of pieces. Meyer Schapiro, writing in the 1950?s, described painting as being ?infected with the literary?; in this work, "Inner Sky," I sought to take a personal cure. In moving past concrete imagery triggered by external poetic sources, I worked only with materials springing entirely from the sound of the flute itself. The overall shape of the work suggests an experience of progressive distancing from the rushing flow of thoughts and their attendant sense of time (normally considered ?waking? consciousness), toward an ever-deepening focus upon the finely detailed sound world available ?microscopically.? The details of this small world require another treatment and experience of time. Realization of the computer portion of the work required considerable assistance from Rick Bidlack, Scott Thomas, and Frank Lockwood, and was accomplished at the Computer Music Studio at SUNY, Buffalo, and the Media Studios at the Banff Centre. Funding for this portion of the work came from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Banff Centre. Substantial revision to the electronic portion was undertaken in Winter, 1999-2000. I am very grateful to David Boyle, Ron Parks and the SUNY, Buffalo, Hiller Computer Music Studios (Cort Lippe, Director) for their support and technical expertise in making the new materials, and re-working the old.