Six Pieces for Woodwind Quintet:

Six epigrammatic essays in a very challenging medium.

 

The challenge? How to achieve a full sonority in an ensemble of five disparate instruments.

 

The solution? Careful use of unison and octave doubling to create fullness and resonance.

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1. Jump and Leap

 

Although there is no discernible melody, it tells its curious story convincingly

 

2. A Strange Meeting

Mozart goes to the movies

 

3. Persistence

 

Original title: Frustration

 

4. Java Booboo

 

Pentatonic patterns — with a playful taunt at the end

 

5. Chocolate Fingers

 

Takes its title from a line in Genesis (the band, not the book)

 

6. Leaning Down

 

A hoedown in classical pajamas

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First performance: Popper Theater in Schoenberg Hall on the campus of University of California Los Angeles