Standing in Seven Corners
with a focused playfulness
with a harsh sense of severity
with a gusto of excitement
with a flowing, crystalline constant
with a feeling of timelessness
with a forceful determination
with an unstoppable sense of momentum
Notes on the piece:
Standing in Seven Corners is in a series of works that explore the variations model. I view these pieces not as examples of theme and variations, but rather each deals with variations of a structural formal concept. In this sense, the section presented first is just as much a variation of the concept as the other sections.
The general impetus for Standing in Seven Corners was the idea of a single artist, painting a single object set in the center of a seven-cornered room. Each variation represents the idea of “painting” this object from one of the seven individual corners. Each corner will find the object cast in a different light and exposing and/or masking certain aspects of the object.
Standing in Seven Corners was written for the April 2011 collaboration between the Boston Composers' Coalition and the wind quintet Vento Chiaro.