Michael Blake
ALTO TROMBONE AND VIBE
Bardic Edition BDE1431
For alto trombone and vibraphone.
I developed this piece at the Nirox Foundation in Sterkfontein, when Ivo Nilsson and Jonny Axelsson were artists-in-residence in 2015. Perhaps because we were in the Cradle of Humankind, I was thinking about what kind of music the early hominids might have made. Then I allowed my imagination to run riot: among other things the alto trombone could conjure up the lumbering of large prehistoric animals in this landscape with the very muted, often quite inaudible vibraphone perhaps suggesting more agile creatures. I had wanted the vibraphone to be covered in material as a kind of mute and played with ancient stones, but for practical reasons I took up Jonny Axelsson’s suggestion of very soft mallets which produced an identical timbre.
The first performance was given by Ivo Nilsson (alto trombone) and Jonny Axelsson (vibraphone) on 8 October 2015 in the Konstnarsnamnden, Stockholm.
Two playing scores included.
Duration 12¼ minutes
I developed this piece at the Nirox Foundation in Sterkfontein, when Ivo Nilsson and Jonny Axelsson were artists-in-residence in 2015. Perhaps because we were in the Cradle of Humankind, I was thinking about what kind of music the early hominids might have made. Then I allowed my imagination to run riot: among other things the alto trombone could conjure up the lumbering of large prehistoric animals in this landscape with the very muted, often quite inaudible vibraphone perhaps suggesting more agile creatures. I had wanted the vibraphone to be covered in material as a kind of mute and played with ancient stones, but for practical reasons I took up Jonny Axelsson’s suggestion of very soft mallets which produced an identical timbre.
The first performance was given by Ivo Nilsson (alto trombone) and Jonny Axelsson (vibraphone) on 8 October 2015 in the Konstnarsnamnden, Stockholm.
Two playing scores included.
Duration 12¼ minutes
