Three Sephardic Songs

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Scores and parts for this piece are available for purchase by contacting me.

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Three Sephardic Songs for Flute, Clarinet, Electric Guitar, Double Bass, and Piano was composed in the early months of 2023.  It was commissioned by fivebyfive (Rochester, NY) who requested modern settings of three songs, Una Matica, Morena, and La Comida, to be composed for their unusual instrumentation and performed in a concert alongside traditional settings of these songs.

In thinking about how I could approach setting these melodies for this ensemble, I realized I had choice to make: I could immerse myself in recordings of these and other Sephardic songs to better understand this musical tradition, plus listen to fivebyfive’s many recordings to see how other composers and arrangers have approached using this rare combination of instruments, or I could avoid listening to recordings and take these melodies and this instrumentation, mediate on and play around with them, to come up with my own ideas for what this ensemble can do and what these melodies could become.  I chose to take the latter approach and largely avoided listening to recordings or analyzing the songs’ lyrics.  The result is something that, except for the melodies themselves, is most likely far removed from the Sephardic musical tradition and I hope gives a new perspective on what these fascinating melodies are and can be.

Premiered Oct. 21, 2023 by fivebyfive in Syracuse, NY.

Honorable Mention, Society of Composers Mentoring Program