"Scare Quotes". In 2009 I was commissioned by the US Marine Chamber Orchestra to write an orchestra piece stealing Beethoven's 5th, for a children's concert. It's a five-minute piece named after something on the Weather Channel web page the day I finished it:
Current Conditions. (Beff finished a piece the same day, and her piece is called
Winter Weather Advisory). There was a complicated script for the whole concert, and I showed up near the end wearing a blue wig. Is that awesome, or what?
It seemed that a five-minute piece for orchestra needed siblings, so I added three more, which the New England Philharmonic eventually commissioned. Because I
am was their
composer in residence. Each of the other movements also takes its title from the Weather Channel page on the day I finished it. I. quotes two Brandenburg concerti, and also responds to Beff's challenge to feature melodica prominently. III. quotes the Urlicht movement of Mahler 2. IV. quotes both the first and last movements of Mozart 40.
I planned ahead for
Double Shot (IV.) to be 300 bars, and to take ten days to write by averaging 30 bars a day. It's 301 bars, and took ten days to write.
The movements can (and likely should) be performed alone.
Scare Quotes is © by CF Peters.
For the sake of counting down. Symphony #3 is
here. #2 is
Ten of A Kind, on lots of streaming services, iTunes, etc. #1 will stay in the vaults for now, and probably forever.
