Sonata for flute and piano

Description

Duration

10 min.

Instrumentation

flute, piano

Program Notes

Sonata for Flute and Piano was written in 2006 for Allison Ballard, a student employee at Kulas Music Library, Case Western Reserve University, who had already premiered a work of mine in high school. It consists of two movements, which treat the same material in emotionally opposite ways. Both movements begin in D Dorian, but the first, “Depressive”, heads flatwards toward the Locrian mode, and “Manic” heads sharp toward Lydian. “Depressive” is a fairly straightforward sonata form in which the development becomes increasingly violent before collapsing into an attenuated recapitulation which dies out in a statement of the first theme in quarter-tone diminution. “Manic” is a rondo that starts silly and gets sillier, picking up a little Latin flavor before the last unstable iteration of the main theme in 11/16.

The second movement was premiered by Sharon Marrell with Madeline Levitz, piano, on April 22, 2007 at a Greater Cleveland Flute Society concert. Allison premiered the complete work later that year on a student recital; her teacher Katherine DeJongh gave the first non-academic performance with Eric Charnofsky on a Cleveland Composers Guild concert.

Jeffrey Quick was born in Cass City MI in 1956, and began composing at age 11. He received a BM in music history in 1978 from the University of Michigan, where he studied composition with William Bolcom and Leslie Bassett, and the MM in composition from Cleveland State University in 1991, where he studied with Bain Murray, Rudolph Bubalo and Edwin London. His works are print-published by Hoyt Editions, the American Recorder Society, Lorenz, and CanticaNOVA, while chamber works can be downloaded from newmusicshelf.com and choral works are available at cpdl.org. He is assistant music librarian at Case Western Reserve University, and is a member and past President of the Cleveland Composers Guild. He has been a paid church chorister for about 25 years, and currently directs the Gregorian Schola at St. Sebastian Parish, Akron OH. A resident of Northeast Ohio since 1986, he lives in a small town on 6 acres with his wife Rusty and assorted livestock. More information on his works can be found at www.jeffreyquick.com