DIARY OF AN ALIEN, 1994
Duration, 21 minutes
Solo flute
MOVEMENTS:
A Call For Action
Drifting
No Rotary Phone
Somewhere the bells...
Diary of an Alien is a collection of thoughts, impressions and reactions in musical form. The performer can choose which movements to perform, like leafing through a diary and choosing the excerpts to read. The many meanings of the word, "alien" convey an ambiguity that is intriguing. This could be the diary of an alien from society, from another world, from another planet, the diary of someone who is alienated from modern day life . . .
A Call For Action is assertive and non-reflective, portraying the title in musical language.
Drifting through space, through thoughts, through time, through . . .. Drifting experiments with multiphonics (humming into the flute while playing) and playing the head joint of the flute.
No Rotary Phone is a satirical musical monologue in which the performer plays two parts, a person making a telephone call and an answering electronic voice. Beginning with "dialed" touch-tone phone number pitches, the movement goes through a typical phone mail routine. The composer could not resist taking the opportunity to poke fun at public radio stations' incessant airing of Pachelbel's Canon when the caller is connected to a radio station while "on hold." The caller tries, earnestly at first, to listen to the Pachelbel, but becomes bored and distracted as well as increasingly frustrated by the imposed demands of this so practical and yet so dehumanizing one-way conversation.
Somewhere the bells.... While standing on a mountain side, bells are heard echoing from far away in another valley, like a memory from another time, another place, another life . . .. Electronic echo alters the sound of the flute, overlapping pitches to form chords.
On CRI, 1999 - CD #821 "Crosswinds"
Performances:
National Musical Arts concert, National Academy of Sciences, Washington D. C., 10/25/98
Live Radio Classics, Buffalo, Radio Station, Buffalo, NY, 11/15/97
Society of New Music, Ithaca, NY, 6/22/97
Alice Weinreb, National Symphony residency, Flagstaff, Phoenix, Cottonwood, AZ, 5/97
Continuum, Society of Composers, Inc. National Conference, Miami, FL, 03/06/97
Alice Weinreb, Nat'l Symph Res, Lincoln Center for Perf. Arts, Lincoln, Montana, Leonard Slatkin, cond., 5/10/96
MOSTLY NEW MUSIC Chamber Music Series, Sara Stern, Greenwich House, New York City, 4/18/96
Camerata, Gaucher College, Baltimore, 3/4/96
Capiton Woodwind Quintet, Washington, D.C., 2/18/96
Scripps College Inaugural Symposium on Women in Music, Claremont, CA 10/28/95
Mannes College of Music, Contemporary Music Festival, New York City, 4/27/95
Capitol Composers Alliance, Washington, D.C., 6/12/95
Amer. Museum of Women in t/Arts, Intern. Alliance of Women in Music, Wash. D.C.,6/11/95
Faculty Recital, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, 9/20/94
Sonoklect, Lexington, VA, 1/28/94
