Composer

Remembering Icarus was commissioned in 2005 by KRWG, a public radio station in Las Cruces, New Mexico in remembrance of its founder, Ralph Willis Goddard, a pioneer in broadcasting who was killed in an electrical accident at the fledgling station in 1929.

I’ve always liked the myth of Icarus but the classical tellings of the story right down to Ovid always struck me as reductive. The story’s told as a precautionary lecture — don’t go too far from home, dear, look both ways, remember to be polite. It’s all good advice but we know it backwards by the time we’re ten. And sometimes we even remember to follow the good advice.

But the part about Icarus that I really like is the imagination —  we all walk around this planet staring at our feet. I really love the moment when for some reason, we let our glance rise. And continue to rise, all the way to the sky, maybe following a lark. And then, the courage to imagine ourselves up there. Flying. Imagining what we could do if we let ourselves. That’s what’s precious.

So of course, I couldn’t let Icarus fall at the end. He thinks about coming back to earth. After all, how sad it would be to leave this beautiful planet, to turn from our family and friends. But — how sad would it be to give up flying. So, the cello lands on a C# for a little while and sighs. And then the others start to sigh with him. And pretty soon, it’s the old line. Forgive me while I disappear. Off into the blue. Ralph Willis station is still flying, carrying its signal across the southwest seventy five years after he tended the knobs at the station.

Bagatelles

Premiered at Wolf Trap, February 22, 2008

My long time broadcast partner in the radio series Center Stage from Wolftrap, Rich Kleinfeldt is also the tenor sax player with the Washington Saxophone Quartet, whose playing is known broadly from their hip harmonizations of NPR’s All Things Considered theme.

After four years of stalling I finally coughed up a piece for the Quartet, which they were kind enough to play beautifully.

The three movements, played without pause are:

1. Antique Dance
2. Ground Round
3. Fast and Loose