January 04, 2011
Winner of Calefax Reed Quintet 2010 Composition Contest and 5 New Pieces
The stupendous Calefax Reed Quintet awarded my piece, Ranae for Reed Quintet their 2010 Composer's Competition prize December 28th, which nicely enough was also my birthday.
Harrington Wins Composers Competition 2010
I had the great pleasure of being at the concert virtually through Skype video, giving a small interview and listening to them premiere my piece. There will be a studio recording sometime in the next couple of months. I'll not be putting up a demo in lieu of what I expect to be an amazing studio performance. The piece, Ranae, or frogs in Latin, is 4 minutes of what I've described as the beginning of Le Sacre as seen through the dense funk polyphony found in Dixieland bands (but without the jazz influences).
I've also just finished a big piece, Passages Rituels for String Quartet and Electronics. Passages Rituels is an exploration of the use of string instruments combined with electronic audio which acts as a quasi-orchestral accompaniment and additionally adds quartertone colorings to the piece (without requiring that the quartet perform quartertones). The piece functions as a slow walk, almost a walking meditation, like Kin-Hin, through a ritualistic landscape, fluctuating emotionally between lamentation and fury.
While I'm not putting up demos or the scores for these last two pieces, I do have 3 new pieces I am distributing free to all. First, a new crazy solo cello piece using lots of quartertones, Quarter Dollar Tones for Solo Cello. The piece has an extreme folky intensity and uses quartertones throughout as a kind of wrong note flavoring. A premiere is promised sometime in the spring, probably April, by cellist JW Turner who recently premiered and performed again my solo cello piece The Empty Fist.
Quarter Dollar Tones for Solo Cello
Quarter Dollar Tones for Solo Cello - Score
Last month I started a new nocturne for piano, but it got side-tracked by the bluesiness and off kilter beats which resulted in my new piano piece, Blues Intermezzo for Solo Piano. I'll get the score out shortly.
And I've been writing so fast these days, that I completely forgot about a Tango for Viola and Piano that I wrote just before we moved to Avignon, France. It's got gospel-like material and grooves on top of the tango beats.
Tango for Viola and Piano - Score
Tango for Viola and Piano - Viola Part
Tango for Viola and Piano - Realization
I've almost finished another tango, this one for piano quintet (sq, pno).
And finally here's the MP3 of the hour long Chance Radio interview I did with Bob Shingleton for web and radio play if anybody has yet to hear it.
Chance Radio Interview with Jeff Harrington
And extra-finally, for those that are looking for things, I keep all of my MP3's here:
All Jeff Harrington MP3's
And all of my scores and parts here:
All Jeff Harrington PDF's