My Hands Are a City

for wind ensemble
(2008)
Duration: 14'
PROFESSIONAL

Commissioned by:

California State University-Stanislaus—Stuart Sims
Eastern Illinois University—Milton Allen
Florida International University—Greg Martin
Middle Tennessee State University—Reed Thomas
Ridgewood Concert Band—Christian Wilhjelm
Rutgers University—William Berz
St. Charles East High School—Jim Kull
Texas A&M University-Commerce—Jeffrey Gershman
Texas State University—Rod Schueller
Texas Tech University—Sarah McKoin
The Florida State University—Richard Clary
The Univeristy of North Carolina-Greensboro—Kevin Geraldi
The University of Georgia—John Lynch
University of Nebraska-Lincoln—Carolyn Barber
University of Wisconsin-Madison—Scott Teeple
Williams College—Steven Bodner

Consortium organized by Jeffrey Gershman, Texas A&M University-Commerce

3Fl(3.db Picc), 2Ob(2.db EHn), EbCl, 3Cl, BCl, CbCl, 2Bsn, SSax, ASax, TSax, BSax, 4Tpt, 4Hn, 2Trb, BTrb, Euph, Tba, Cb, El.Gtr, Pno/Cel, Timp, 6Perc (Glock / Crot / Vibr / Mar / TubBells/ RideCym / SusCym / ChinCym / CrCym / SplashCym / Piat / Tri / T-Tam / 3MixBowls / SD / 2BD)

Premieres Spring 2008. Available for performance in Spring 2009.

In 2005 I wrote The Rivers of Bowery, a short work celebrating a verse from Allen Ginsberg's Howl. Response to the piece was positive, but I believed that both the musical and extra-musical themes were perhaps larger than the length allowed. I designed My Hands Are a City as an expansion, both in thematic scope, and in musical material. In my neighborhood on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the musicians and poets and characters of our mid-Century "Beats" are still very active ghosts. I walk past the tenement where Allen Ginsberg wrote Howl, stroll across "Charlie Parker Place", and over the city streets rapturously described in prose and verse, and captured in era photos and film. Surrounded by these spirits, I allowed My Hands Are a City (titled after a 1955 Gregory Corso poem), to overflow with mid-Century American vernacular. Altered progressions from bebop tunes, stretched out, frozen, and suspended solos from Lester Young and Charlie Parker recordings, as well as sensory input from months of immersing myself in novels, poetry, and photographs, all fill out the work. Taking musical material from The Rivers of Bowery happened quite naturally, as well. The process was much like approaching my finished piece as if it was my sketchbook, and using that once-final material as the cells and harmonies to then spin out. But where in its sister-work I concentrated on capturing Ginsberg's singing of the lost and outcast mobs of his counter-culture, what struck me while making this more expansive work was the ever-present cloud of sadness hanging over much of the work of The Beats in general. It's a quiet sadness I hear even in the frantic bebop of Bird and Miles, and in my re-reading of the classic literature of the period. This too, seeped in, perhaps adding a tinge of darkness to the colors of the piece.