PROGRAM NOTE
Being commissioned by the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival to create a new work for the major milestone of its 50th anniversary was both an honor and a special delight. My choice of the flute, viola, and harp combination for this composition was reached quickly and almost instinctively, motivated not only because I relished the thought of composing for an instrumental ensemble I had not previously written for, but also because something about its color palette reminded me of the image I have of Santa Fe as a sun-drenched city of warm hues, a thriving arts scene, and a spirit of relaxed tolerance.
In All Roads Leading I treat the instruments intermittently as three distinct characters who have their own individual “voices” and musical materials, while at other times they coalesce into a single, more unified entity. In the sections expressive of the instruments’ individual “souls”—as I like to call them—the music ranges from the songful, to the impassioned, but also the volatile. In contrast, where all three instruments act as a single entity, the music tends to be highly rhythmic, sometimes dance-like, even angular, and spiky.
As the work progresses, the boundaries between these contrasting approaches become deliberately blurrier and more intertwined, perhaps reminding one of a tale with various twists and turns in the plot. And although eschewing a formal recapitulation, various motivic threads as well as emotive “states” are eventually brought full circle, as if to fulfill an intended role that crystallizes only as All Roads Leading plays out its full journey. Simultaneously with the general unwinding and relaxation that is reached near the end, a mutation of an earlier more threatening element appears at the very closing of the work, perhaps a reminder that the unknown always lies ahead.
—Shulamit Ran
INFORMATION
Commissioned by The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival in celebration of its 50th Anniversary Season
Premiere: August 4, 2022
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival
Tara O’Connor, flute
Max Mandel, viola
June Han, harp
Duration: c. 13’
SHEET MUSIC
Available from your favorite sheet music seller, or directly from Theodore Presser.