Six Pieces for Woodwind Quintet

EXCERPTS

These are 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.

1. Jump and Leap

Gestural writing; there is no discernible melody. But 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

This piece takes its title from a line in Genesis’ “Lamb Lies Down On Broadway” album:

"It is the scent of garlic that lingers on my chocolate fingers"

6. Leaning Down

A hoedown in classical pajamas — Mozart in chaps?

Composed 1983

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