Tuesday Tones

I’m growing more and more attracted to the abstract, I’ve found. I think part of this comes from the greatly-increased amount of time we’ve been spending in art galleries and museums, particularly the Buffalo AKG Museum, with its amazing collection of modern art. But this interest in the abstract is also tinging my music listening. Works like the one I feature today are really appealing to me of late.

Jeffrey Mumford is a composer currently (I think) living and teaching in Ohio. From the bio on his publisher’s website:

Born in Washington, D.C. in 1955, composer Jeffrey Mumford has received numerous fellowships, grants, awards and commissions.

Awards include the “Academy Award in Music” from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, a Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, and an ASCAP Aaron Copland Scholarship. He was also the winner of the inaugural National Black Arts Festival/Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Composition Competition.

…

 Mumford has taught at the Washington Conservatory of Music, served as Artist-in-Residence at Bowling Green State University, and served as assistant professor of composition and Composer-in-Residence at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music. He is currently Distinguished Professor at Lorain County Community College in Northern Ohio.

Mr. Mumford is published by Theodore Presser Co. and Quicklight Music.

I snipped out a long list of honors and accomplishments by Mr. Mumford, just to keep this post at a reasonable length, but do go read through it. He is a very accomplished musician.

This piece is called “a garden of flourishing paths”. From the YouTube page, I believe these comments are by Mr. Mumford himself:

a garden of flourishing paths was commissioned by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and the Contemporary Music Forum/VERGE Ensemble to celebrate the 100th birthday of the distinguished American composer Elliott Carter. This work would also not be possible without the generosity of Philip Berlin, Otho Eskin, and Nancy Dodge. Special thanks also to composer Steve Antosca, Artistic Advisor of the VERGE Ensemble and Stephen Ackert, Head of the Music Department of the National Gallery of Art, for their vision and support.

The work is cast in eight short movements, each featuring a particular instrument or group of instruments.

The title for me evokes the space for which it was written (the West Garden Court of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.). In addition, it refers to the expressive character of the developmental paths taken by the instruments in relation to one another.

It has been my pleasure to have known Mr. Carter for many years since being a student of his during in the early 1980s. I am pleased to add my small piece to the many that were written to honor this marvelous creative artist.

Hearing the work the first time, I found it striking in its blend of colors–just look at that combination of instruments!–and the way melodies and rhythms seem to briefly emerge, without ever taking over or forming a complete thought. The effect seems to me to suggest the kind of experience one has when walking a garden path: hints of color and splashes of sound, each obscured, each only perceived around the periphery. A brilliant blossom appears, but only seen through the branches of a tree in front of it; a snippet of conversation wafts from around the next bush, and so on.

You know what? Here’s another piece by Mr. Mumford. I love this man’s sound! This is “through a stillness brightening”. (Non-capitalization of his titles seems to be a thing he does, not unlike e.e. cummings.) 

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