Flat Circle

John Kosch

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Quintet

2023

5 min.

Pitched Percussion

Unpitched Percussion

Program Notes: Flat Circle is a musing on the adage, “Time is a flat circle.” The piece loosely depicts different states of consciousness that often accompany existential thought, from mindfulness to madness and everything in between. Some sections are meditative, and others are disorienting, dissociative, and even dreadful. My hope is that we identify the beauty in all of it. This piece is designed for young percussionists who are just beginning to learn 4-mallet technique. The majority of the piece involves double vertical strokes on comfortable intervals (4ths and 5ths). There is 1 repeated single stroke permutation that is present in all 4 parts. Finally, the entire piece requires just 1 shared marimba. Although 2 of the performers must play the marimba backwards, they play almost exclusively on the upper manual (the “black notes”), limiting the number of possible pitches.
Ensemble Name: Keygan Boesiger, Bennett Jandreau, John Kosch, Aaron Mathis