Click for recording from the premiere performance

About the Piece

Contours and Shades is a three-movement piece composed for the Bala Brass Quintet. I was originally inspired by the interaction and intersection of colors and lines, both in how these concepts apply to music, but also to many other facets of life such as visual art, nature, or the act of a young child trying to color inside the lines of a coloring page. I was also struck by the larger metaphorical meaning of coloring inside or outside the lines, that relates to conforming to expectation, pushing boundaries, etc. In the first movement, Outburst, angular melodic lines, that are often jazzy, and sometimes soloistic, surround a gradually expanding wedge of colorful sustained sound. In other words, the color is within the lines for the most part. In the second movement, Silhouette, the horn and tuba are the primary melodic lines. The rest of the ensemble trace the lines, both vertically through coloristic effects, and linearly through echo, and expansion, creating multi-directional shadows of the primary lines. In the opening of the final movement, Loops, the quintet is a homogenous unit, projecting a series of repeated, descending lines, played in rhythmic unison. First, the descending loops are enhanced by splashes of color that emerge outside of the structure. Gradually, the roles are reversed, as the background colors progress to the foreground, and the rhythmic loops fade away.

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