b. 1951 || Website
Donald Crockett is an American composer who has been commissioned by a number of prestigious ensembles including the Kronos Quartet and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Also working as an active conductor of new music, he has conducted for Xtet, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Hilliard Ensemble, Ensemble X, Firebird Ensemble, along with countless others. He is the current Department Chair of Composition and Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs at University of Southern California along with the Director of Thornton Edge New Music Ensemble.
to be sung on the water is a piece written for viola and violin. Around eleven minutes long, its title is an homage to the vocal pieces with the same titles written by Barber and Schubert. Although nothing like these previous pieces in sound, or style, it refers merely to the same concept of voices on/over the water. The piece is a gentle, almost rocking, between silence and mostly slow moving sections with many double stops.
to be sung on the water
Night Scenes is a piece written for violin, cello, and piano. Written in four movements, or “vignettes as Crockett describes, each are suggestive of scenes from movies or perhaps even of the movie attendees themselves. Scattering the Barbarians is a technical movement that alludes to noisy crowds. The Blue Guitar is a more laidback movement where the three instruments overlap their slow moving lines to create layered harmony and beautiful moving chord structures. In the third movement, he uses an ostinato to create the movement of the midnight train while the violin and cello create its ‘song’. Inspired by the Hopper painting, Night Hawk, is a spirited work centered around the subjects evoking a movie-like setting. However, Crockett encourages the listener to create their own scenes with his music.
Night Scenes
Whistling in the Dark written for flute, bass clarinet, two percussion, piano, violin and cello. Crockett likens each section of his piece with a sort of story. For example he describes the disjunct dissonance following the bright piano introduction “as if you were looking at a two-faced mask with a smile on one side and a grimace on the other”. There is a place where one can feel a melancholic slow dance which includes “a lonely couple dancing at some tropical backwater bar at the end of the world”. The cheerful music comes back towards the end, however, this time “there is something lurking just around the corner”. (http://www.donaldcrockett.com/compositions)
Whistling in the Dark
I have noticed in reading the details in the program notes he left for the pieces above that much of his music is based on very specific imagery. And while this may be how he sees his pieces, he sometimes encourages the listener to come up with their own story for his music, instead of strictly following his own ideas or visuals. While based in Los Angeles, David Crockett is an active member of the new music scene not only in Southern California, but across the United States. To follow Donald Crockett please visit his website.
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