Compositions from Julie Spencer & Gernot Blume
Almost 5 AM
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
This piece is written for 2 mallets. It requires a performance method that I developed as a student at the Eastman School of Music, the Relaxed Concentration Technique. When applied to two mallet keyboard playing, the technique shifts the focus of attention onto the large muscle groups of the arm instead of the small muscle groups of the hands and fingers.
In the summer of 1987 I heard a chorus of birds singing in Paris outside the window of the apartment at almost 5 am. It was an experience of simplicity and beauty, which inspired this music.
Anachronismus
Small Ensemble
Nyckelharpa (or Viola), Soprano & Alto Recorder, Cello, Accordion, Percussion
by Gernot Blume
Anachronismus, written for a folk-like chamber ensemble, is characterized by cultural influences that have shaped my musical outlook since childhood: Irish and Bulgarian traditional music as well as Baroque and contemporary Western art music. The pastiche of the global village is a complicated one, in which harmony and dissonance have to be able to co-exist, or else is becomes a romanticized projection. In this piece, tonality knows of its necessary deconstruction, yet there is still a yearning for harmony in every dissonance.
Ask
Solo Vibraphone
by Julie Spencer
Ask was written in the summer of 1991, in a large room, called A 300, at the California Institute of the Arts. It became the title track for the first cd, the following year, because the simple act of asking questions, listening and watching to see things more deeply, and to hear with the soul, is what the whole creative life is about – asking, without expectation, - asking, without assuming to know already, - asking because it is in our nature to desire – and if we simply direct that desire to asking what is most essential, then we can use all of who we are for what is the greatest good – and that always has something to do with simply being who we are, unique, and complete, without asking for anything else, reflecting an implicit desire to be, and to experience that being with fullness and peace. Ask reminds me to look at myself, and what I desire, and to think about what is most important.
The final melodic phrase of the piece is an echo of that question. The chordal statements of dissonance and harmony throughout the piece express the tension between desire, assumptions, expectations, and letting go. Ask is about letting go, instead of trying to hold onto something – because letting go of what you think you see is the only way to see anything new.
Before the Beginning
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
Before the Beginning was written during a time of new beginnings. I had just begun studying tabla, West African drumming, jazz harmony, and improvisation at CalArts in Los Angeles. I went back to the marimba one day to write this piece for a student’s recital. It was cathartic. The peaceful intensity of Before the Beginning made me think about keeping a calm center in the middle of so much change. Shortly afterwards I recorded Before the Beginning for the first time in the studio of the late French film composer Michel Colombier. This was one of his favorite pieces of mine.
Before the Beginning
Marimba Quartet
by Julie Spencer
“Before the Beginning” was written during a time of much change. I had just started studying tabla, West African drumming, jazz harmony, and improvisation at CalArts in Los Angeles. I went back to the marimba one day to write this piece for a student’s recital. It was cathartic. Like slow motion photography of dolphins swimming underwater and jumping in graceful arcs of motion, the four voices of “Before the Beginning” take turns rising above and back into the chordal blue waves of sound. The intense peacefulness I feel playing the music of “Before the Beginning” makes me think about keeping a calm center in the middle of new beginnings. Shortly after writing it, I recorded it for the first time in the studio of the late French film composer Michel Colombier. This was one of his favorite pieces of mine.
Brothers in Peace
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
Brothers in Peace was written for Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi.
From two religious backgrounds, serving the same goal, till the end of their lives, they worked tirelessly in making social, political, economic, and personal freedom possible for all individuals of their respective societies. King, a Christian minister, profoundly inspired by Gandhi’s efforts, strove to forgive, and enlighten bigoted white America, and to embolden the communities of disenfranchised African Americans to claim their rights as fellow citizens of democracy. Gandhi, an attorney, who exchanged his business suit for a simple cloth wrap, worked to free the Indian subcontinent from British colonial rule, and to encourage the oppressed under the class system of Indian society to exercise their voice for equality and justice. Both were assassinated by gunfire.
My inspiration for the piece comes from their bravery, their humility, their spiritual core from which all strength flowed into one purpose – to make a better world for the people around them, and to give a voice to people who had no voice, and power to the powerless, and to forgive and not to fight with violence, but with words, and will, and faith. The piece ends with echoes of the gunshots that ended their lives, but did not end their vision. Brothers in Peace was written for and premiered by Nancy Zeltsman.
Brückenschlag
Solo Piano
by Gernot Blume
Brückenschlag – which means bridging or crossover in German - experiments with the collision of disparate cultural vernaculars - the Western piano, the music of the Ghanaian Ewe people, and the world of Javanese gamelan. Premiered with gamelan and the Ghanaian lead drum, atsimewu, at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon, 2002, at the occasion of the concert event “Soundings” featuring eight premieres of compositions of mine, Brückenschlag in the solo piano version also reverberates with these three cultures which have influenced me so profoundly for nearly twenty years.
Much of my music is about the internalization of vastly different yet reconcilable sounds. When asked for a solo piano version, I realized, that the aspect of crossover/collision exists within the piano part like a microcosmic reflection of how the piano functions in the macrocosm of the entire orchestration – through the tapestry of the various textural structures that shape the piece. There are fluid lines, jagged rhythmic ostinatos, angular chords, and steady quarter note sections in which the juxtaposition of octaves and major sevenths produces the shimmering effect of Javanese gamelan tonalities.
All this coexists, alternates, interacts in episodes, which keep a balance between surprise and logical sequence, reflecting my own personal experiences with these musics. Finally the piano on which I composed the piece had its significance for the result of the work: it was an old out of tune upright piano – perhaps a bit like the one Stravinsky cherished and preferred over many of the perfectly tuned instruments he could have had, and the humming, buzzing, and moaning of that instrument contributed to the inspiration for the piece. Brückenschlag renounces a certain Western aesthetic of slickness, and instead builds a bridge between the piano and those world music cultures in which sound begins to live, when it is not what Western minds might call “pure”, implying better or smoothed over. The tonal shimmer that occurs when west meets east gives the piece its intriguing beauty.
Chelsea Window
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
Chelsea Window was written following a stay in New York City’s Chelsea Hotel, which has a long and interesting history. Standing at the window, I noticed the silence, so many floors above the car filled streets, looking out at the rooftops, glimmering in the sun of the late afternoon, - so many people around, and yet so quiet. The lobby, full of faces and languages in the mirrors, next to the front doors, in the broad stairway, a global cross section. It was a surreal experience, of old, calm, regality, in the dark paneling and architecture, and the intercultural ethnicity and urbanization, of the present day Chelsea. The music reflects the dichotomy of this experience, with the juxtapositions of suspended resolutions in jazz harmonies and Latin rhythms.
Elim
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
When Emilo Radocchia, the studio percussionist, jazz vibist and composer known professionally as Emil Richards, showed me his newly designed mallets, he explained that the slap mallet idea had been used for jazz vibes years ago, and that the rattle mallet gave back a world music sound to the western marimba. He took the mallets and improvised for a moment on the marimba there in his studio, with his usual odd meter, bitonal, fiery flare, saying that he wanted a piece with this kind of feel to it, jazz and world music together. I went home and immediately wrote the beginning theme for “Elim.” Premiered for solo marimba at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, 1994, “Elim” also has a forthcoming version for marimba concerto with orchestra. It was meaningful to have this opportunity to give something back through the music to a friend and mentor who has shared so much of his inspiring creativity with me. The title, an anagram of Emil’s name, is also a location in the Biblical story of Moses, where the people found an oasis in the middle of the desert. There is so much in life to be grateful for.
Farbenspiel
Flute, Cello and Piano
by Gernot Blume
Farbenspiel – Color Play
To the Memory of My Father Karlheinz Blume (1935 – 2000)
My father, Karlheinz Blume (1935-2000) was a very fine hobby painter. He loved to play with colors. As a young man he wanted to become a professional artist, but the times and his environment led him towards a more pragmatic career in economics. When it was my turn, he supported my path in music and became the single most important sponsor of my formative years of artistic training, perhaps vicariously fulfilling through me his own dreams of a life in the arts. For this and much more I am forever grateful to him.
Color Play investigates the confrontation of these three divergent instruments, which however remain in their respective spheres of sound. There is no tonal connection between the instruments, no blending or melting, but instead there is enduring contrast. Each instrument unfolds its own unique texture, and yet they weave one picture together. Rhythm, not tonality, provides the inner coherence. Only the respective solo parts in the center of the piece interrupt the soundscape of rhythmic interlacing after this initial structure has gradually dissolved, only to reemerge toward the end. Color play demands great rhythmic precision and strengthens ensemble interaction in a chamber music setting without a conductor. The certainty of an inner pulse carries the musicians across a sound journey through the field of tension between cubist edginess and late-impressionistic color blurring.
Flying Nowhere
Vibraphone and Piano
by Gernot Blume
Recorded in 1995 on the CD “Changes Inside,” Flying Nowhere combines elements of jazz and modal grooves with a driving pulse describing the emotions of separation and arrival between my home country, Germany, and the United States, which was my second home for fifteen years. Written after flying home for my first visit in Europe after having moved to North America, Flying Nowhere was a soul searching attempt to understand more clearly what it meant to be a foreigner, and to never be able to experience home in quite the same way after having lived abroad. At that time, I felt between worlds, and nowhere at home, but now the piece has come to symbolize something else – that i don’t need to fly anywhere else to be at home within myself.
Gebilde
Saxophone, Trombone and Piano
by Gernot Blume
The basis of “Gebilde” (thing, structure) is rhythm. The instruments are connected by way of rhythmic hocketing or interlocking, as is typical in many musical cultures of the world. For Western musicians the challenge is to internalize a shared sense of pulse so strongly that each player knows exactly where his or her part falls with respect to the others. This produces what jazz musicians call “groove.” Playing the pitches is less than half the work. The piece begins to move – and to move us – when this sense of pulse is so strong that it ticks like a clock and draws our attention to it, even where it is not played explicitly, which means when it is played as rests – in other words, when – in the jazz language - “it grooves hard.”
Glowing Horizon at Dawn
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
“Glowing Horizon at Dawn” is the story of waiting in darkness while seeing the vision of a sunrise in the mind’s eye, trusting in the presence of and the eventuality of metaphoric goodness. The entire piece takes place before sunrise. The conclusion anticipates the joy of the light, while trusting that it is already here. A strong filmic reference for me is the recurring theme of angels on the earth pausing for sunrise, in director/writer Wim Wenders’ “Der Himmel Über Berlin.” It is a peaceful image of humility and love.
Gomer in the Desert
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
"Gomer in the Desert" was written in front of a large glass window, on a couple of sunny days, with light streaming across the marimba bars, in the desert of southern California. I always hear a full orchestra arrangement in the lush chords.The title comes from the Bible, in the book written about the prophet Hosea and his wife Gomer, who is a metaphorical figure for the people who follow God. In the story God hoped the people would become more grateful for all the good things given to them in their lives. Gomer must first go into the desert to free her mind, in order to learn to see the beauty of God’s love through simplicity. The story is a reminder to find more happiness in less things. The bowed gong represents the impression of God’s voice in the desert, calling to us to see the miracles all around us.
If You Don't
Voice, Marimba, Vibraphone
by Julie Spencer
If You Don’t is a kind of postmodern medieval chant. Pure vocal tones improvised in sporadic chordal formations swell above the tapestry of water-like sounds that float out of the marimbas, with the special sound effect of rolling handfuls of sticks back and forth across the wood. Distant melancholic interjections from the vibraphone create an illusion of expanding space and time. The piece exudes an atmosphere of intense spiritual longing and reconciliation.
The title is taken from a quote by a friend, who, moved by the sound of my voice, said, “If you don’t stop singing, I’ll cry.” The metaphor of the title refers to the irony of self expression. If we resist allowing ourselves to be moved as receivers, we lose something of the creative ability as givers. The piece was written in 1988, premiered at the California Institute of the Arts in 1989, and is recorded on the Julie Spencer and Gernot Blume CD “Lost & Found.”
Ice Cream
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
“Ice Cream” is a metaphor for what is wonderful about being a child, the thrill of effortless concentration – experiencing the laughter and tasting the joy of profoundly simple moments filled with the beauty of timeless freedom.
Klangbewegungen
Small Ensemble
by Gernot Blume
Sound Movements is an improvisatory composition in eight movements, which gives the performing musicians a considerable amount of interpretive freedom. Poems serve as a score and as performance instructions. The musicians have to listen to each other carefully and respond to each other’s musical statements according to the structural and textural ideas the composer has fixed.
The movements are entitled: Beginning, Source, Spilling, Agreement, Conversation, Reactions, Play, and Prayer.
All movements are part of a cyclical whole and should be played in the context of the entire piece. Any combination of instruments is possible. An ensemble of 4 to 7 players is most recommended.
Peace of Mind
Marimba and Piano
by Julie Spencer
Premiered in Tokyo for the Japan Percussion Society Festival 2004, Peace of Mind for marimba and piano is a sound collage of layered transparencies. Alternating cascading linear constructions with odd meter rhythmic grooves in rapid transformations, the interwoven textures evaporate and build again, juxtaposing a double time feel of expressive determination with a half time feel of inner reflection.
Dedicated to my father, who passed away in 1993, the piece is a reminder that to remain open to experiences of deep sadness is part of the process of discovering peace of mind.
Phases of the Moon
Marimba and Piano
by Gernot Blume
In 2004, Julie Spencer and I were invited to perform at the Japan Percussion Festival in Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. Phases of the Moon reflects the paradoxical tension between the unchanging and the ephemeral, represented by the image of the waxing and waning of the moon. The harmonic content of Phases of the Moon is tonal and in a way traditional, but the chord progressions often take unexpected turns. There are echoes of Irish Folk in the crafting of the melodic lines, hints of impressionist harmonic blurring in many of the runs, which interrupt the melodic gestures, and jazz in the grooves, which underscore the improvisational sections. All this diversity, however, is united in a fairly homogenous texture, dominated by broadly stretching linear motion, quickly rising and falling melodies, and chords that anchor this constant motion.
Pink Elisa Spring
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
Pink Elisa Spring was inspired by an evening together with friends in Los Angeles who were visiting my music space. The little five year old girl of the family danced lightly through the large room, between all the instruments, and found a rose colored plastic spotlight gel lying on the floor. She held it up in front of her face, and looked into the ceiling lights and smiled with delight, as the world turned pink! After this lovely moment, the piece I was working on at the time, still untitled, took the name of the little girl, Elisa. It was a beautiful evening in the spring of 1989.
Shinkansen
Trombone, Piano and Percussion
by Gernot Blume
Commissioned by Hiroshi and Shiori Tanaka, Tokyo, Japan.
This piece was composed with the memories in mind of riding on the Shinkansen trains in April 2004, between Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka. I was struck by the contrast of the relative silence and motionlessness of my familiar environment inside the train, and the life of unknown worlds through which I passed. Only a quiet gaze connected me to the outside, and the machine that hurled me through quickly changing landscapes remained the only world I inhabited, making the fleeting images appear like a dream.
Sprachlos
Mixed Chorus and Percussion
by Gernot Blume
“Sprachlos,” (without language, speechless), is inspired by many of the world’s musical languages that emphasize the human voice primarily as an instrument rather than a vehicle for transporting meaning. Many cultures have for centuries treated the voice in ways my own Western horizon has only recently begun to investigate. The resulting textures have often struck me as rather “modern,” or “experimental,” even though they are deeply rooted in traditional cultural value systems. The musical idioms and cultures referenced in “Sprachlos” are unified by my own, decidedly Western identity and aesthetic values. I do not attempt to imitate the world’s musical traditions, but rather to let them resonate in my own imagination, filtered, abstracted, displaced. I am aware that this kind of musical concept runs the risk of being criticized as neo-colonialist cultural appropriation.
However, musical systems and languages and musicians of any tradition have always been interested in each other. My leaning toward a multi-stylistic collage is perhaps related to Henry Cowell’s desire to “live in the whole world of music.” I do not mean to appropriate, but instead to observe and reflect. I visit humbly, respectfully, but I also leave behind and return home. I admit to the control of my authorship and to the subjectivity of my exoticisms.
“Sprachlos” reflects my experiences as a musician and as an ethnomusicologist with varied musical cultures, but it is ultimately the texture of my own dreams as I imagine and remember distant lands and sounds. And for me today, all lands are as distant as they are close, even my own. They are as much my lands as I belong to none of them. The imaginary journey of “Sprachlos” does not require prior experience with the referenced musical vernaculars, but it also does not deny its global frame of reference.
The Unbook
Jazz Ensembles
by Gernot Blume & Julie Spencer
The Unbooks are a collection of short compositions for players of all musical backgrounds and instruments, who want to improvise. The pieces can be performed with any instrumentation. Some pieces have piano scores and separate harmonization parts, some focus on textural ideas rather than a standard tune format. Many are for improvising outside the norms of the jazz tradition, while many others are written as standard lead sheets with chord symbols. Numerous compositions may also be played as completely written out miniatures, without improvisation, or be organized in suites or medleys. Musicians, who work with different strategies and traditions of improvisation can find in these volumes compositional material to frame, structure or guide their performances."The Unbooks" can be used as an alternative kind of “Real Book,” with references to a broader stylistic spectrum.
Tranquility
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
Tranquility was commissioned by Kurt Gartner.
Tranquility is a word that I learned as a child from the first lunar expeditions, from Tranquility Base. It has a wondrous transcendent quality, this word that creates an audible spiritual experience of inner calm, like the quietude of the surface of the moon. This spaciousness is aptly portrayed by the tender liquid sounds of the vibraphone.
Tree Song
Two Marimbas
by Julie Spencer
„Tree Song for Two Marimbas” has influences of jazz harmony and African 12/8 rhythms. The marimbas echo bird calls in the forest at different times of day as the trees respond to changing winds and rain. The phrases of communication, conflict, and resolution they create together are a reflection of our world in constant change, as we search for peace within ourselves, between our societies, and with our environment.
Written as a variation on themes from an earlier flute and marimba duet piece commissioned by Vicki P. Jenks, „Tree Song for Two Marimbas” is dedicated to Gordon Stout.
Tribeca Sunflower
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
One afternoon in Tribeca, a small neighborhood in New York City which has bright yellow sunflowers planted in the summer in front of a silvery tall sunflower sculpture, sitting in the cafe across the square, I thought about the differences between the beautiful living art and the artist's rendition of nature's sculpture.
I was moved to play music when I got home, with the images in my mind, and the ideas developing musically, of different sorts of existence, side by side, reflecting one another peacefully, both alive, but in completely different ways. It became for me a metaphor of people living together, seeking new and positive experiences with cultures that are on the surface dissimilar, but are in fact alive together, side by side on the earth.
The ensuing composition, which interweaves static melodies (the sculpture) with flowing intricate rhythms (the living sunflowers) was then named Tribeca Sunflower, because Tribeca is, itself, a composite name from the streets that converge in this quiet triangular square in the heart of New York City.
Tribeca was written for mallets that I designed, and that are now produced by Mike Balter Mallets, the Julie Spencer Tribeca Mallets.
Tribeca Sunflower
Marimba Quartet and Percussion
by Julie Spencer
Universum
Solo Piano
by Gernot Blume
“Universum” (“Universe”) is a collection of nine episodes for solo piano, referencing different stylistic languages, which have all been important influences for me, in particular the musics of Olivier Messiaen, Alban Berg, and Igor Stravinsky. The programmatic allusion to the universe articulates my desire to hear and transform into my own language, as American composer Henry Cowell once said, “the whole world of music.”
Waterfalls
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
Waterfalls was originally a commission from the Japan Percussion Society and was premiered as a concerto for marimba and six percussionists in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, Japan, in the 2004 Japan Percussion Society Festival Concerts.
The piece is also available as a one-movement concerto for marimba and orchestra. The textures translate the motion of cascading water into sound.
Waterfalls
Marimba and Orchestra
by Julie Spencer
The concerto in one movement for marimba and orchestra was premiered in Warsaw, Poland, in 2006, at the Crossdrumming Festival.
Waterfalls
Marimba and Piano
by Julie Spencer
Waterfalls
Marimba and Percussion
by Julie Spencer
White Squirrel
Solo Marimba
by Julie Spencer
White Squirrel is a metaphoric piece, the first self-portrait I wrote for the marimba. I had until 1987 only seen the light brown squirrels of my home in Indiana. But when I saw that first white squirrel in Brooklyn, it was as if I were seeing a different part of myself, that I thought I knew, but didn’t. What I take from the experience is to try to see things fresh, as the beginning of anything new and meaningful. When I got back home, I gave myself permission to write anything that wanted to come out, from whatever place in me needed to speak, and the music was different than what I had done before, a mixture of jazz harmonies and syncopations with returning themes in shifting tonal centers.
Why
Marimba Quartet
by Gernot Blume
“Why” was written in 1991, originally for string quartet, while I studied jazz, world music, and composition at the California Institute of the Arts. I wanted to explore the possibilities of this classical ensemble type when confronted with jazz phrasing, the rhythmic intensity and drive of jazz, and harmonic structures that exist somewhere between jazz and contemporary music. The piece is also the result of my immersion in Balinese gamelan orchestras and Ghanaian drum ensembles, with particular emphasis on the aspects of interlocking melodies, angular phrases, and steady bass lines.
Much string music has been arranged for mallet keyboard instruments – so this is no exception. But I found that through the different instrumentation the piece transformed into a completely new entity, although all pitches remain the same. That is why the marimba version is valuable to me – it is not merely a copy of the original. In some ways the marimbas add to the feeling of displacement, the “Verfremdung” of different cultural allusions, without which my music cannot exist. Music begins for me where minimally two elements collide. In the case of “Why,” this aesthetic program is also reflective of the context of the composition. I was dismayed after a fellow pianist was almost stabbed to death in a mugging. “Why” expresses fear and anguish, but also the will to overcome.
“Why,” for Marimba Quartet, was first recorded in 1996 on the Equilibrium Label, with musicians from the University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble under the direction of Michael Udow.
Approximate performance duration: 7’30”