Snow Bound! Musicians:
Eclectic Edge Ensemble
Meet a couple of our collaborators!
Snow Bound! A Journey from Autumn to Spring's soundscape features original music from four very talented musicians: Richard Sloss, Brian Erickson, Nathaniel Kling and Warren Park. In today's post you'll hear from the latter two musicians- a little about their process in creating their pieces of music for Snow Bound!
Nathaniel Kling
How many pieces did you compose for Snow Bound and on what instrument?: One guitar solo for Snowbound. This is my fourth composition for EEE (cello and upright bass compositions previously).
Photo from 2014's "Dreamscape"
What message/feeling/emotion did your piece need to convey?: isolation during winter months
How did you evoke the message through your piece of music?: My piece has a lot of space. The dancers are often left alone with silence. The melodies and phrases are intended to evoke the various emotions one feels while alone. These can be feelings of melancholy and loneliness but also ones of peace and contentment.
What was your collaboration with EEE Artistic Director Karis like?: I really enjoy collaborating with Karis. She often provides the title of the segment (e.g. "Isolation") and then allows me do whatever I want with it musically. There is much creative freedom.
Warren Park
photo credit: Mischa
Instrument you compose for/play: I play piano, and several of my original pieces for Snow Bound! use recordings I made on my grand piano at home. Many of the other pieces I wrote for the show are recorded from the computer, using sampled sounds from a great collection of real orchestral instruments called the Garritan Personal Orchestra.
How many pieces did you compose for Snow Bound? Somewhere around a quarter of the pieces of music used in Snow Bound! are my own compositions. At least a dozen of them--maybe more.
Tell me something about the process of creating music for Snow Bound!…
Karis and Laura have most of the stage action planned out ahead of time, and they ask me to write music for specific purposes, like a leaf falling, wispy snow, the snow globe turning magic, a dance that represents the magic of winter itself, the appearance of the Northern Lights, and so on. Much of the time they leave up to me what the music should sound like, using the broadest of suggestions. One interesting challenge they gave me a couple of months ago was for the section where two women each has her own creation she is bringing to the world. All the guidance they gave me about what to write was " each creation has its own distinct personality." No suggestions about what those personalities might be like. I appreciated the trust they had in me to produce something they could take off with, once the music was written. I enjoy being allowed to imbue the initial personalities into these creations through the music itself, and then hand it all off to them to invent how those distinct personalities are interpreted and manifested on stage. My own art is enhanced and expanded by the art they create in other art forms, through other methods. This is a great way to collaborate!
