Description
Duration
Premiere
International Horn Symposium
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO
Katie Johnson-Webb, horn
Kirstin Ihde, piano
Commissioner
Instrumentation
Program Notes
Rise was commissioned by Katie Johnson-Webb and Kirstin Ihde with support from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Katie Johnson-Webb and Kirstin Ihde premiered the work at the International Horn Symposium at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, July 30, 2024.
The piece was inspired by evocative artwork by Mia Bosna. This particular piece of art spoke to me of the possibility of emerging, rising above something, transformation. A beautiful multicolored rose wants to rise, like a balloon, yet is tethered by threads to dark and dense material below. The rose is held in place by the threads, and yet some of them have broken off. In the opening measures of the music, the horn is given a rising line; there is hope and possibility. The piano responds with descending figures like an exhale. The piece, in essence, is a dialectic between these two ideas, with struggle, play and eventually a convergence where they transform and lead into new places. Perhaps the listener will also be led to wonder whether the rest of the threads will break off and the rose can finally rise.
With gratitude to Mia Bosna for providing artistic inspiration and kind permission to reprint her image. Many thanks to the Visby International Centre for Composers in Visby, Gotland, I-Park in East Haddam, CT and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts for providing invaluable time and space to create this work.
–Andrea Clearfield