Loose Leaves
for chamber ensemble (9 players), 1989, duration: 19 minutes.1,5
When conductor, Jim Freeman asked me last winter about the possibility of composing a new piece for Orchestra 2001 I began to collect ideas and materials in a three-ring notebook. These embrionic sketches included loose pages of melodies, rhythmic gestures, chords, and harmonic progressions, all generated during the months of spring. Over the summer months the ideas matured, developed, and blossomed into a stratification of instrumental ideas, colors, and timbres juxtaposed in a variety of seemingly separate, often overlapping ways. "Loose Leaves" contains a wide range of emotional contexts - from clocklike and mechanical to songful; from a-rhythmic pulse to "toe-tapping." As I was finishing the composition, pieceing together all the disparate elements of the work and at the same time anticipating the coming Fall, I felt appropriate that it be titled, "Loose Leaves," all puns intended.
Orchestra 2001, James Freeman, director
1 Published by Theodore Presser Co., Inc.
2 Published by Carl Fischer, Inc. = available from Theodore Presser Co., Inc.
3 Recorded by CRI. - available from New World CRI : Catalog No. NWCRL484
4 Recorded by SEAMUS Recordings
5 Available from the Fleisher Collection of Orchestral Music
6 Recorded by Black Canyon Recordings
7 Recorded by Albany Records