Empty Every Night
[Click image to view sample PDF score]
(for alto saxophone and harp), 11 min., 2009
Pictures on Silence: Noah Getz, alto saxophone and Jacqueline Pollauf, harp, 2009
While sitting at the piano in my studio at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, my view was mainly of an old silo bedecked with various pails. One of these pails was metal painted bright red with the phrase EMPTY EVERY NIGHT stenciled in yellow. I was left to wonder if this epitath was meant as a directive or a description.
As I began composing this piece, I realized that the music kept tending towards the characteristics of a Nocturne: with a simple melody that is gradually ornamented, mainly in triple meter and with a subsumed passion.
This piece was commissioned by Pictures on Silence, Noah Getz, saxophone and Jacqueline Pollauf, harp and is dedicated to them with great admiration.
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