August Horizons

(2000)
For Clarinet & Guitar

Duration: ca. 5 minutes

This piece has not yet been performed publicly

Program Notes

August Horizons is a very personal piece because it was written specifically for my girlfriend Susan Tarson for her thirtieth birthday. Although she plays a wide variety of world music instruments, piano and clarinet are her main "classical" focuses. I wanted a piece which we could play together and since guitar was my instrument, I decided that a piece for clarinet and guitar would be a good choice. This short bagatelle is quite different from my other music as there are no theoretical principles behind the piece nor any hidden compositional processes. Instead, this is music straight from the heart and I simply relied on what I felt and what sounded good to me. In the end, the overall structure of the piece has an arch form which can be diagramed A-B-C-B-A (to oversimplify slightly). Although there are no clandestine procedures concealed within the music, there is some hidden information in the name of the piece. Susan’s birthday is August 5, therefore the title contains the word August and the piece lasts about 5 minutes. August 2000 was an important time for both Susan and myself as it marked a new phase in our lives. At that time we had recently finished our graduate studies at Northern Illinois University and we moved in together, ready to start out post-school endeavors. According Webster’s dictionary August is also an adjective meaning "marked by majestic dignity or grandeur." The title August Horizons can therefore be viewed as meaning the beginning of an illustrious life together, which happened to begin in August.

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