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Days, Distance, Days

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Large Ensemble
2023
18 min.

Trombone

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Program Notes
Days, Distance, Days is a roughly 18-minute concerto for trombone and large ensemble that explores some of the many ways that groups of human beings connect, network, interact, and relate in the age of computers. The music is sometimes strictly led/locked into a click track - an electronic metronome set off at various moments by the keyboard player. This can allow the musicians to achieve extraordinary feats of coordination, but are they playing with each other, or is each an individual connected to a network? At other times, the same music is explored with immense freedom by the soloist or members of the ensemble. The structure, harmony, and counterpoint of the piece are all created ‘organically’ out of a recording of Ivo (our soloist) reading Elisabeth Bishop’s poem "Argument". We hear this recording, filtered and manipulated by the computer and played back into the space. The music is constantly tracing paths across a distance: from individual to collective and back, sometimes able to carry one thing to the other, and sometimes not. As Bishop puts it: Distance: Remember all that land beneath the plane; that coastline of dim beaches deep in sand stretching indistinguishably all the way, all the way to where my reasons end?
Recording Notes
Live and unedited recording of the world premiere performance: Göteborg, Sweden; 18 March 2023 Ivo Nilsson Solo Trombone Gageego! Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Conducting
Ensemble Name
Ivo Nilsson, Trombone; Aaron Holloway-Nahum, Conductor; Gageego!