Rust

Year: 1989

Heading: for piano, 11 winds, and bass

First Performance:
21 November 1989
Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
Okest de Volharding

29 November 1989
Absolute Concerto
Avery Fischer Hall, Lincoln Center
Christopher O'Reilly, piano
Orchestra of St. Lukes/Paul Connelly

Instrumentation: solo pft—fl.2asax.tsax—hn.3tpts.3tbns—elec.bass

Duration: 14'

Recording: Rust can be found on the release, five

Listen now: RUST (click here to listen)

Press: ...I adore his mini-piano-concerto Rust, which I couldn't stop playing for two months when I acquired the record. —David Murray, Tempo

Program Note:
The components of the drum track of a rap song were taken apart and assigned to each of the sections of the wind ensembles: the saxophones, the trumpets, and the trombones- so that pitches are taking the place of unpitched pop drum machine patterns. The solo piano is the leader, of course, but it is many times interwoven canonically with the ensemble, so that the brass and saxophone form rhythmic echoes of the soloist.

"Rust" means nothing except the tarnished color I associate with the main chord chosen for the piece. Simpler chords are forced out of this basic dissonant chord, a held-back release.