Exchanges
William Susman
About this work:
The first performance was given at San Jose State University in 1987 with William Susman, conducting.
This work won a Percussive Arts Society award in 1982. Written when he was 21, Susman sets a virtuosic multi-percussion solo against winds and brass.
In some ways Exchanges is a minature of his earlier orchestral work Movement for Orchestra (1981). Both works imbue European Formalistic tendencies. Here Susman showed influences from Webern in his pointillistic gestures as well as Penderecki and Xenakis with a predominance of glissandi. The winds and brass instrumentation set against percussion is reminiscent of Varese.
This work and others from his early period such as Floating Falling (1987) Openings (1982) use graph paper to layout the pitch material. The "music" on the graph paper are a series of lines representing pitch and duration much like a "piano roll" or the way in which nowadays a computer software sequencer's piano roll view appears. He then, orchestrated the lines, giving them timbre, dynamics, and gesture.
Shortly after this work was composed he was awarded a graduate fellowship at Stanford's Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA) in 1982.
Year composed: 1982
Duration: 00:07:30
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Other Combinations, 6-9 players
Instrumentation: 1 Flute, 1 Clarinet, 1 Trumpet, 1 Trombone, 1 Bass Trombone, ,1 Percussion (General) soloist(s)
Instrumentation notes: virtuosic percussion concerto. Flute doubles on piccolo.