Stream 3 (chamber orchestra)

A commission instigated by Joel Sachs and premiered by the New Juilliard Ensemble,  Stream 3 was myhomage to Gunther Schuller's ''Third Stream'' music, in which jazz and classical mingle.

This was from the collection of 'I didn't really know what I was doing' works. I have some indelible memories from arriving in New York for rehearsals and the premiere:

1 - At the first rehearsal, the string players asked me why I wrote my accidentals so 'funny'. They were quarter-tones (uh-oh...)

2 - I went over to the pianist (Adam, if I recall correctly) and he was sweating and super-stressed. I looked down at the keyboard to see blood on the ivories. He looked at me in panic and said "please don't tell anyone! I"ll get taken off the gig". Adam was a Mompou enthusiast....

3 - A kiwi friend in NY had brought his company's CEO (visiting from Japan) to the concert, who didn't know what to make of this musical madness.

4 - Due to union laws in the venue it was only possible (and here we go) to amplify half of the ensemble. As all parts had rotating solo functions, this made the resulting mix that we all heard - incomprehensible.

5 - while I was in New York I recorded Drum Dances at the Hit Factory (in the same studio Billy Joel had just recorded his latest album). I went there with Brian resnick and Stephen Gosling. The engineer (Andy, I think) was incredibly helpful and found solutions to my microscopic budget - we ran out of tape (huge 48-track reel-to-reels) with about 1 minute of music left to record. I couldn't afford another reel, so Andy spliced the front leader-section of the tape (always left empty for safety) on to the end of the reel and we just made it.

Here's a recording of the New Juilliard Ensemble performing Stream 3 at Alice Tully Hall.

‍

I subsequently rearranged the work for a small ensemble with backing track, and retitled it Stream 3.3

There's a better sense of the intention of the work in this adaptation.

Full Instrumentation

Instrumentation 1(pic).1.1+bcl.0+cbn / 1.1.1.1 / 2perc / pf / str (1.1.1.1.1)

Flute (dbl pic)
Oboe
Clarinet (dbl bcl)
Contrabassoon

Horn
Trumpet
Trombone
Tuba
2 Percussion

Piano

Strings (single players)

Review

ALLAN KOZINN, THE NEW YORK TIMES, SEPTEMBER 2005

(Stream 3) is a concerto grosso of sorts, with a jazz trio as the concertino. Both the trio and the larger ensemble play overtly jazzy music, but when the trio was in the spotlight, it had a more freewheeling, improvisatory quality, while the full band's pages seemed more fully scripted, and more susceptible to formal touches.

Resources

PERFORMANCE MATERIALS

RESEARCHERS: EXPLORE STREAM 3 SOLO PIANO, SOLO BASS, SOLO DRUMSET, AND CHAMBER ORCHESTRA AT THE ALEXANDER TURNBULL LIBRARY