Footprint

It's time to blog again.

What better time, than when I need to finish a piece?

(Considered from a certain angle, though ... that is very nearly anytime.)

To start (here in the blog, I mean--for the piece is already begun), what can I tell you about Oxygen Footprint?

1. It is a trio for flute, viola and harp, commissioned by Ensemble Aubade.

2. I've thought about writing such a piece for a while, and I have a cursory sketch bearing the working title Ray Charles Needs Soloists. (Probably I shan't ever actually write a piece of that name, too vivid. Comes from an email message from the director of a choir I used to sing in.)

3. (Probably shan't use that old sketch. Doesn't seem to have anything to do with the present piece.)

4. The group and I have agreed on a piece seven minutes in duration, and composed in such wise that the harp part could work at the piano.

5. The piece will be premièred in New York State in November of this year.

6. I seem to have begun proper work on the trio at the beginning of July;  but it was on May the 12th that I advised the group's management that the title of the piece is Oxygen Footprint.

October looks like a busy month for at least some members of the Ensemble, so I have promised to have the piece to them for rehearsal in September.

At present, I have some 90 seconds of the piece done. Well, 60 for certain. And if I compose 20 seconds of music per day, 6 days a week, the score will be done on 31 August.

The piece will be Op.138.

(Op.139 is the collection Minor Sacred Music IV; and Op.140 is Sound & Sight.  Originally, Op.138 was a short dramatic work which is being shelved a while.)