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fragments and memories
{Concerto for Trombone}

for trombone and piano

duration app. 14 min.

Program Notes:

fragments and memories was written for Radu Clipa, an extremely talented trombonist living in Bucharest, Romania, who also gave the international premiere of my Trombone Sonata.

fragments and memories is built upon a few basic motives. The first is a series of repeated notes that then leaps up a sixth and then back down, ending a semitone above or below the initial note. The second is a fast moving passage that eventually rests on neighbor-note figure.. From there, the trombone and piano take off in a flight of fancy, and the motives follow, changing and transforming throughout. The piece is in three larger sections, but within each section the music flows naturally, making references to things that have come before, or will be yet to come. How all of this comes together to make a coherent piece is for theorists to decode. For the listener, I strove to create easy to follow connections, and a motivic saturation that is never stagnant or boring. The title is not a reference to the form or construction, but rather an evocative title as to how the listener might come to understand the piece. My intention was to write a piece that would be fun to play, and hopefully also fun to hear.

The current version of the piece was written for trombone and piano, but throughout, my compositional intent was to write with a larger ensemble in mind. Still I wanted the piece to remain “pianistic”. Hopefully the result is a piece that sounds natural on the piano, but also infuses the listener’s imagination with possible orchestral colors and gestures.

-Ryan Jesperson
10/7/2008

this work was written for Radu Clipa and was premiered in Bucharest, Romania on Jan 21st, 2009. It will also be performed as part of the CMU New Music Festival in March, 2009, and is the winner of the 2008/2009 British Trombone Society Composition Contest.

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