Composer’s Note:

Evocations was composed for two long-time colleagues, clarinetist Jean Kopperud and percussionist Tom Kolor, for a set of performances and a recording on Jean Kopperud’s “Extreme Measures” series on Albany Records. I had written an earlier work, Rustic Dances, for a similar combination of instruments (violin, clarinet and marimba), and some of the spritely energy of that piece carried over into this one. In the case of Evocations, dance-like gestures are more veiled and illusive at the outset, but give way to overt expression in the work’s middle section in the form of three set-pieces: ‘Rustic Dance,” Gavotte,’ and “Burlesque’. Another aspect of the music is the blending of tonal and atonal figuration—a technique I’ve explored elsewhere–but it seemed particularly apt here in support of the buoyant gestures.