Pangaea

Instrumentation: Bass Clarinet and Vibraphone

World Premiere: October 2010; Willard Straight Hall, Cornell University

Duration: 6.5 minutes

Program Notes:

Pangaea was written for a concert featuring new compositions inspired by art. I was inspired by Natasha Gangjee's Pangaea, which is featured above. The title references the ancient "super-continent" that detached into our present day separate continents 175 million years ago.

I was eager to compose for the usual combination of bass clarinet and vibraphone, which are some of my favorite instruments. I depict the separate sections of the original art (which represents the separating continents) through the great contrasts between the instruments' timbres. The vibraphone plays calm, soothing melodies, similar to the sensation of being suspended underwater, which is also represents the floating bubbles throughout Gangjee's original work. On the other hand, the bass clarinet represents the separating continents through playing purposefully jarringly loud timbre trills (rapidly playing between different fingerings of the same note to create subtle tuning differences in pitch.) The two separate motives contrast and combine together throughout the work.