piano
ca 3.5 minutes
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About:
Where the Sidewalk Ends was written as part of Scenes from Catholic University, a group composition project in the music school where I teach. Each composer (undergrad, grad, and faculty) was given a “Scene from Catholic University” as a prompt for a new short piece, to be written for a pianist at the university. Composers were paired with pianists within their cohort at the school: undergrad with undergrad, grad with grad, and faculty with faculty. The entire set was conceived as a companion to Robert Schumann’s Op 15 Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood). Like Schumann’s work, these pieces were intended to be short, not too difficult (but perhaps challenging…), and taken as a whole, exhibiting a range of landscapes and emotions.
My piece is a personal reflection on my experience with the expanse of grass starting at the top of the hill above Ward Hall, where the sidewalks leading south from Leahy Hall, or up from the front entrance of Ward Hall, physically end. This is a space well-trod by members of our music school community: one can head west down the hill to Ward, or eastward up to locations such as Caldwell, Leahy, and the rest of campus. Particularly for those of us that dwell close to Ward’s vending machines and elevator, the back door of Ward can be a much more convenient path to the rest of campus (up the grassy expanse). Those of us that have been here for several years might hear the ghosts of the past calling out: the now-abandoned music library to the south, the forgotten vegetable garden to the north, the patch of grass where one fell either up or down while taking a chance on a rainy day. My music tries to evoke these misty memories, using a twisted inversion of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps to help my tall frame perambulate around this uneasy (but curious) space.
