Composer Spotlight
Phillip Arnautoff
Concerning My Variations for Cello
Wed., Sept. 8 @ 7:30pm
Jack Straw Productions
4261 Roosevelt Way NE Seattle
map FREE
Jack Straw resident artist Phillip Arnautoff illustrates the synthesis of just intonation and the techniques of developing variation that characterizes his Variations for Cello, a large-scale work exploring both the implications of the harmonic series and the genesis of an entire composition from a few motivic cells. A number of significant examples will be given, followed by a performance of a small segment of the complete score.
Phillip Arnautoff was born in Washington state and lived for a time in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he encountered first the music, then the person of Harry Partch, an encounter that proved decisive in his musical evolution. Informal studies in piano and composition followed, most notably with a friend who had studied with a student of Arnold Schoenberg. Following a long exploration of the possibilities of expansion of the Partch system, serious compositional work began late in 1998 with the composition of Soliloquy for his Harmonic Canon, (an instrument modeled on the Harmonic Canons of Harry Partch), followed by Afterthought, also for Harmonic Canon, and two works for his Adapted Cello: Three Meditations on Medea and Five Epigrams and Interludes. His most recent work - Variations, also written for his Adapted Cello - required some five years from its inception to its completion, and is at once a moment of arrival and apotheosis of all his previous musical work, and a point of departure for parts unknown.
Supporters
Jack Straw Productions gratefully acknowledges The Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, City of Seattle’s Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs, 4Culture King County Lodging Tax Fund, Washington State Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, PONCHO, ArtsFund, Seattle Foundation, and individual contributors for their support of Jack Straw Artist Programs.