Jittery Volcano

for violin and contrabassoon (2024)

Jittery Volcano is written for Fiona Shea (violin) and Jackson Barnel (contrabassoon)

When Fiona came up with the idea of a violin-contrabassoon duo, I was immediately on board. I have always been fascinated by the combination of uncommon instruments, and composing for a duo of a high string instrument and an extremely low wind instrument was exactly the musical challenge I needed. Violin and contrabassoon differ so much in terms of timbre and range, so the question for me was how to create a coherent sound world and musical narrative with these two disparate acoustic species. My solution was to create a scintillating soundscape of fast sonic thrusts, like a twittering machine that spins out motivic fragments. This way, the timbral opposition is mitigated through fast rhythmic and textural interplays, before its eventual exhaustion and evaporation.

The composition and premiere of Jittery Volcano are supported by the Sviatoslav Richter Outreach Fund at the Shepherd School of Music.

Link to recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Z89lvFaPCaSBlbMZ9pf-WK8TSOXd7GNC/view?usp=sharing

Link to score: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wtLUk_IfEoWn1AK1bGwL5x-JLFq84S_a/view?usp=sharing