Collaboration #2

Since last summer photographer Micheal Vickers and I have been tossing about ideas for our second collaboration.  The first was a woodwind quintet titled Visions of a Landscape.  In this collaboration I composed music inspired by five of Micheal's photographs.  We decided early on that in collaboration number two Micheal would take a series of pictures based on my music.

We have been kicking around a few ideas about the instrumental ensemble for which I would compose.  These ideas have ranged from a flute and viola duet to a brass quintet.  One ensemble that was particularly tempting was violin, clarinet, tenor sax and piano.  This is the same ensemble that Anton Webern used in his Quartet, op. 22.  I have since decided against it for this collaboration as I was not sold on the idea of using tenor sax.

I have decided to compose a piece for cello, double bass and piano.  The piece will be titled Trackings No. 2.  The "No. 2" does not refer to the fact that this is our second collaboration.  Rather, I have another piece titled Trackings that I composed in 2008.  This mixed ensemble piece was composed for flute, alto sax, violin, cello and percussion.  Trackings is going to be a series of multi-movement pieces in which each movement will be no longer than three minutes.  I have decided to make our second collaboration the second in this series of pieces.

I chose this ensemble because I have a series of sketches for a piece for cello and double bass called Birches.  Before completing this piece I had decided to abandon this project.  I have been wanting to use these sketches in another piece for some time now.  I decided to dust off this collection of sketches, select six of the eleven movements, expand the ensemble by adding piano and revise these sketches.