Alleluia (hey hey hey)(spring 2004) trombone, vibraphone, and piano
Duration: 9'
performed here by Ryan Zawel (tbn.), Bob Whalen (vibes), and Josh Groffman (pno.) right-click here to download (or hold the control key and click)
The title of this piece is, like the musical materials, a mixture of the sacred and the secular: the “alleluia” is a literal alleluia, a 9-note piece of chant, while the “hey hey hey” is more abstract, coming from my background as a pianist playing various pop musics. In this piece I wanted to dwell on a few musical ideas, contemplating them from as many different angles as possible. Collections of material (specific to each instrument) are suspended as if on a mobile, swinging around each other as separate forms. While at the time of composition I attributed certain qualities of this piece to my infatuation with the interpretations of Billie Holiday, I can now see a possibly even greater debt to the Javanese gamelan music that I studied with Marty Hatch at Cornell University.
