Dispositions (2018)

Program Notes:

Dispositions is a set of movements for horn and marimba that aim to capture certain aspects of one’s persona. Aura deals with the way a person might be perceived based on their outward actions – in this case, calm and mostly subdued. Smirk concerns itself with the idea of an anxious world of rapidly changing thoughts, carefully hid behind a cool and collected expression. Tinge deals with the contradiction of these two states. In this movement, the performer may choose to use a natural horn in C.

Central to the expression of this piece is the off-kilter sensation provided by the various ways in which the horn explores different intonations based on the tendencies of the natural harmonic series, ngerings which have extreme tendencies, stopping/half-stoping, and combinations of the three in contrast to the marimba’s xed, equal temperament. Therefore, it is important that the performer embrace these discrepancies and not make adjustments to match the marimba.