His Recursive Heroine, 2011: For Sinfonietta / commissioned by Het Gelders Orkers
This piece was commissioned by Het Gelders Orkest in 2010 and was completed in 2011. It was performed several times in the Netherlands in March of 2011.
The concept behind the commission was that I had to (in some way) deal with the theme of ‘romanticism’. Given this is not a theme I often explore I was faced with a challenge. In the end, I elected to not to shy away from the canon and I re-visited a classic piece from the repertoire. Building from this source I sought to rejuvenate a well-known romantic piece so that it became metaphorically revitalized, undergoing a reincarnation of sorts. This re-birth, via anachronism, forcibly pumps fresh air into a romantic corpse. Providing only enough oxygen so the old music could heave up and re-visit life once more, but this time only in a cruel turbulent replay, where it must long recursively for its end to return.
Here’s a video that documents the performance (Radio Kootwijk) ***I only regard the first 6 to 7 minutes of the piece as being in full accordance to what I wanted to hear.
