Siddhartha (2013-14)
Dance Work For Clarinet in A, Voice, Piano, and String Trio
This work focuses on the death of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama.
In Fall 2013 I was asked by the Dance teacher at Lusher Charter School to improvise a piece on cello to accompany the senior dances. Having been a fan of my school's dance department for a long time, I quickly agreed. The resulting collaboration was quite stunning. I have always loved the obscure relationship modern dance has to the music that accompanies it; as I said in an interview with the Lusher Post-Diluvian, it's a kind of counterpoint that makes no logical sense. Rhythmically the two are not in sync whatsoever, and yet that fact makes them even more in sync. It's pretty incredible. But at any rate, I was asked right after that performance by my old friends Lucy Tucker and Judy Watts to compose a piece for their senior project. Knowing that the two of them would come up with something incredible, I immediately accepted. We had many conversations about the work, and it has gone through several versions. That said, the final version is not actually that far off from Judy's original intention--an slow opening section, "eerie" as she put it, followed by a faster section. The inclusion of the Mary Oliver poem was Lucy's idea, and the way they pulled it off was simply brilliant.
We recorded the score with the strings and clarinet at Loyola University on February 21, 2014 . Because our violist was unavailable, I re-arranged the viola part for a second violin and enlisted the help of Susan Beresko, a grad student at Loyola, to perform on the recording. I recorded the piano and voice seperate from the rest of the group, and put the instrumental parts together myself before sending the whole recording to my dad Rob Kohler to make the final master.
The Buddha's Last instruction
by Mary Oliver
“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal — a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old man, he lay down between two sala trees, and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour. The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields. Around him, the villagers gathered and stretched forward to listen. Even before the sun itself hangs, disattached, in the blue air, I am touched everywhere by its ocean of yellow waves. No doubt he thought of everything that had happened in his difficult life. And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills, like a million flowers on fire – clearly I’m not needed, yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value. Slowly, beneath the branches, he raised his head. He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
In Fall 2013 I was asked by the Dance teacher at Lusher Charter School to improvise a piece on cello to accompany the senior dances. Having been a fan of my school's dance department for a long time, I quickly agreed. The resulting collaboration was quite stunning. I have always loved the obscure relationship modern dance has to the music that accompanies it; as I said in an interview with the Lusher Post-Diluvian, it's a kind of counterpoint that makes no logical sense. Rhythmically the two are not in sync whatsoever, and yet that fact makes them even more in sync. It's pretty incredible. But at any rate, I was asked right after that performance by my old friends Lucy Tucker and Judy Watts to compose a piece for their senior project. Knowing that the two of them would come up with something incredible, I immediately accepted. We had many conversations about the work, and it has gone through several versions. That said, the final version is not actually that far off from Judy's original intention--an slow opening section, "eerie" as she put it, followed by a faster section. The inclusion of the Mary Oliver poem was Lucy's idea, and the way they pulled it off was simply brilliant.
We recorded the score with the strings and clarinet at Loyola University on February 21, 2014 . Because our violist was unavailable, I re-arranged the viola part for a second violin and enlisted the help of Susan Beresko, a grad student at Loyola, to perform on the recording. I recorded the piano and voice seperate from the rest of the group, and put the instrumental parts together myself before sending the whole recording to my dad Rob Kohler to make the final master.
The Buddha's Last instruction
by Mary Oliver
“Make of yourself a light,” said the Buddha, before he died. I think of this every morning as the east begins to tear off its many clouds of darkness, to send up the first signal — a white fan streaked with pink and violet, even green. An old man, he lay down between two sala trees, and he might have said anything, knowing it was his final hour. The light burns upward, it thickens and settles over the fields. Around him, the villagers gathered and stretched forward to listen. Even before the sun itself hangs, disattached, in the blue air, I am touched everywhere by its ocean of yellow waves. No doubt he thought of everything that had happened in his difficult life. And then I feel the sun itself as it blazes over the hills, like a million flowers on fire – clearly I’m not needed, yet I feel myself turning into something of inexplicable value. Slowly, beneath the branches, he raised his head. He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
Coming soon:
Purchase the full score of Siddhartha
Published by Kohler Music Press
For performance permission requests, contact my manager at: rob@kohlermusic.com
To request the score, contact my publisher at: kate@kohlermusic.com
Published by Kohler Music Press
For performance permission requests, contact my manager at: rob@kohlermusic.com
To request the score, contact my publisher at: kate@kohlermusic.com