Program Note:
The Holliston House Quartet was composed in 2013 for the Idyllwild Summer Arts Chamberfest trumpet students. In anticipation of teaching four advanced high school students—Cameron Abtahi, Henry Espinoza, Jeremy Reichenbach, and Justin Schreier—I wanted to create a work that could serve as a challenging chamber ensemble project for them to learn and perform over the course of two weeks.
Though the first trumpet part is at times more taxing than the others, all four parts are designed to put equal musical, and technical demands on each player. Everyone plays melody and everyone plays accompaniment. The students in the Idyllwild Chamberfest spend an equal amount of time playing in small ensembles and in orchestra, so the architecture of the work was designed to teach the forms often employed in the symphonic setting: sonata, ABA aria/song form, scherzo, and rondo.
The quartet was conceived, sketched, and partially composed from May 11–15, 2013 while I was housesitting for a friend whose home is located on Holliston Avenue in Pasadena, California. All of the musical material in the work is derived from the tetrachord D-C-C#-D#, the chromatic musical spelling of 2013.
Performances
03|29|2016
McIntosh Theatre, University of Michigan – Ann Arbor, MI
Christopher O’brien – Student Recital
07|18|2014
Stephens Recital Hall – Idyllwild, CA
Idyllwild Summer Arts Faculty Recital
07|09|2014
Stephens Recital Hall – Idyllwild, CA
Idyllwild Summer Arts Chamberfest Student Recital