Portraits of Athens
Jon Fielder
About this work:
Portraits of Athens
I. The Ridges
II. The Court Street Shuffle
Portraits of Athens is based on 2 locations in the city of Athens, OH, where I went to school and called my home for 5 years of my life. These two locations are the Ridges, and Court Street - the main strip of uptown Athens. The Ridges, now a collection of university buildings on top of a hill by the Hocking River, was once the Athens Asylum, which has an interesting history. A great deal of urban legend and local folklore is attached to the Ridges, and it is a popular spot for students and tourists alike to visit. Though it is now owned by Ohio University and has been turned in buildings intended for university use, there are still aspects of the location and buildings that can send chills up a person's spine when walking through the area at night. There is the abandoned tuberculosis ward, the eerie silo located at the top of the hill, the large Victorian towers, and the two graveyards full of unmarked headstones, just to name a few. It is this location taht makes Athens on of the most haunted cities in America, and in the first movement of this piece I attempt to capture the haunting and ghostly atmosphere that one would feel when visiting the Ridges at night.
The second location is Court Street, and the title of the movement is a play on a popular "rite of passage" for OU students. While it is more commonly referred to as a "pub crawl" in other cities, when one turns 21 in Athens they'll gather a group and do what is called a shuffle, where they visit each bar on Court Street in a single evening and have a drink at each establishment. The term shuffle only applies for the wordplay of the movement. In this movement I attempt to create the frantic, exciting, and sometimes disorienting feeling that one experiences while on a shuffle, or while trying to avoid the thick crowds of students "shuffling" down the street.
Year composed: 2008
Duration: 00:08:00
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice
Instrumentation: 1 Oboe, 1 Percussion (General), 1 Piano