Zydeco Madness (String Orchestra)
William Susman
About this work:
The first performance of Zydeco Madness (to the forgotten of Hurricane Katrina) for String Orchestra is scheduled for the 2008-2009 season of the San Jose Chamber Orchestra on May 17, 2009 with Barbara Day Turner conducting.
Originally composed for solo accordion as a work to commemorate the tragic events surrounding Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, the piece was subsequently turned into a string quartet and then expanded for string orchestra. The first performance of the accordion version was April 19, 2009 in Chicago by Russian bayan accordion virtuoso Stas Venglevski.
Zydeco is Creole-based music indigenous to Louisiana. The lead instrument of a Zydeco band is an accordion and the music itself over the years has integrated a wide variety of popular music forms. Much of Susman's music of the nineties and beyond explores the repetitive rhythms heard in Afro-Cuban music. One such gesture is the montuño a repeated syncopated line or obligato often assigned to a piano, which outlines the harmonic structure. In Zydeco music it is the accordion that drives the harmony with forceful repetitive syncopated chords.
Rather than trying to copy the sound or instrumentation of a Zydeco band, a main theme in Zydeco Madness is rhythm. The title comes from both the genre of music and the region that was so tragically devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The music attempts to describe the madness of the events that transpired leaving so many in its wake lost and forgotten.
Version: String Orchestra
Year composed: 2006
Duration: 00:10:00
Ensemble type: Orchestra:String Orchestra
Instrumentation:
Instrumentation notes: Conventional string orchestra instrumentation of string quartet plus contrabass. Concertmaster has two solis. May be performed without a conductor.