Manyara (2015)

Program Notes:

I've been very interested in overtone-based music for a long while now. This has led me to the music of the (Wa)Gogo people of Tanzania whose music utilizes only pitches in the overtone series in a dense polyphonic texture made up of many ostinato melodic lines.

This piece opens with a solo free-rhythm violin introduction. The The first main section of the piece builds up an interlocking polyphonic texture from looping ostinato melodic figures.

Once this texture is fully built, the violin plays longer melodic lines above it, with the trombone providing more choppy commentary inspired by the sounds of the Tuvan hunting horn – the amyrga.

Up to this point, all pitches are from the harmonic series of G. The last section of the piece gradually dismantles the polyphonic texture while stylized animal sounds (those native to the Manyara region) are played.