Call & Echo

10 min

Call & Echo was commissioned by Synchromy and premiered by Jennifer Brewerse on May 9, 2020 as a part of the Urban Birds project in Los Angeles, California.

cello

Call & Echo is based on the calls and songs of the Hermit Thrush, which are incredibly intricate and have inspired composers long before this project. Their calls start with a held tone, but then evolve into these amazing, sparkling harmonic echoes really resonated with me. I chose not to mimic the literal call or song, but instead to expand on their structure: the opening introduces tones closely related to the inflections and arpeggios of the bird call, but then uses the echoes as a way to venture outwards, capturing the beauty and mystery of their language. This exploration builds to a special moment when the cello sound finally (and rather dramatically) opens up, revealing a rich, resonant, and intimate re-visiting of the opening material.

-Brandon J. Rolle