- RCSC (2001)
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Annea Lockwood
for solo piano
ca. 4'15"
RCSC was commissioned by Sarah Cahill as one of a set of seven short pieces by women composers in honor of Ruth Crawford Seeger. The title is a near palindrome of their names and for its pitch content the piece draws on a ten note row from the Final movement of Crawford Seeger’s second string quartet.
Video recording was performed by Ricardo Descalzo.
Click here to watch a performance (YouTube).
- Luminescence (2004)
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Annea Lockwood
for baritone voice, flute, trumpet, viola, cello, piano, percussion, and speaking voice
Luminescence was commissioned by Thomas Buckner, and is based on poems from Etel Adnan's SEA, which evoke the Lebanese coast of the Mediterranean, her birthplace. The Pacific Ocean is also a strong presence in her life as in Thomas Buckner's and mine, and so the piece celebrates our three-way friendship and our shared love of that ocean, which influenced the first song: here, the phrase lengths match the timing of long Pacific waves which I recorded in New Zealand, some years ago.
Click here to listen on Annea Lockwood's website.
- Gone! (2007)
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Annea Lockwood
for music-box piano, and 20 helium balloons
Gone! was commissioned by pianist Jennifer Hymer.
- Ear-Walking Woman (1996)
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Annea Lockwood
for prepared piano and amplification
Ear-Walking Woman for prepared piano and exploring pianist, uses the classic piano preparations: coins (to detune the strings), screws, wiring insulation sheathing, plus bubble wrap, a rubber ball and small wooden balls, two round stones, a bowl gong, mallets, and a water glass. The piece was commissioned by Lois Svard, to whom it is dedicated and who has given many superb performances of it.
When I started experimenting with these objects on my own piano, I found that even slight changes in the method of producing a sound evoked striking variants in sonic detail, for example: rocking a stone gently between two sets of strings brings out several pitches and their overtones, iterating in unpredictable rhythms. Getting the stone to rock really hard adds higher pitches and at times the stone will turn over, setting off a new set of strings and pitches, which gradually fade away as the stone comes to rest.
The work is set up as an open-ended exploration, in which I have determined which ‘tools’ are to be used in each section, and the pianist is asked to listen closely to the sounds created by each action, and to explore further the variants which arise when s/he uses a little more pressure and change of speed, a slightly different wrist position, a different make of piano. I think of this experience as “ear-walking,” like a hiker exploring a landscape.
Click here to listen to the recording.