Clouds of an Evening Sun for Flute (or Native American Flute) and Orchestra:
Reduction for Flute (or Native American Flute) and Piano

Composer’s note:

As an American Indian composer, I want to create a new art form. I want to bring the world of classical music before the creative spirit of the American Indian. I want to see a new genre of classical contemporary music, created by Indians, expressing the unique Indian ethos and style.

Indians can make an original contribution to music – the same way artists have in the field of sculpture and painting. In the person of James J. Pellerite, an artist performer on the American Indian flute, I find my musical paint brush. I’m using European art tools, modes considered unique in the development of my own tonal and harmonic organization, to say something American Indian. I am able to present my new forms of harmonic organization, my new colors and my new styles of Indian expression.

Clouds of an Evening Sun is a tone poem for the American Indian flute and orchestra, here in a reduction for the flute and piano. It expresses elements of romanticism and varied phrases of intensity. Polytonal melodies and contrasting rhythmic patterns are effectively colorful.