About this work:
"Peter's People" is a 3 movement suite derived from the video of the same name. The music was composed by Barton McLean, and the video by wife Priscilla McLean, on a commission by the Arts Center of the Capital Region through the Petersburgh Library and the Taconic Corporation. The video depicts and profiles 7 artists living in the small mountain village of Petersburgh, NY and how they have strived and struggled and kept to their own vision through the years.
All three movements used the Kyma System exclusively in the composition. Each composition was done using one pass of a Kyma Timeline with no additional MIDI input. "Moving Along" draws on a number of samples, most prominently those of cellist Ronald Feldman.
The title of this second movement, "Pleased to Meetcha," was derived from the situation that I used recorded performances (samples) of three fine artists. What is unusual is that these were recorded separately over a 5 year period, and when they were recorded I had no idea that they would be used together in the same piece, thus the title which depicts them meeting for the first time musically in the work. The frantic guitar was played by Terry Lamphere, and greatly souped up via the Kyma System, which scrambled, transposed, and otherwise modified the original (a slow Dylan tune) to the point of unrecognizability. Athena Burke's soulful jazzy vocals were recorded years earier for another piece and they are presented here unaltered. Charlie Tokarz provided the woodwind backgrounds, and again, these are original takes from a work by my wife Priscilla. I did do a bit of transposing here.
This shows my jazz background, an aspect that is only rarely present in my work.
Although I, Barton McLean, hold the copyright, I nontheless hereby gladly authorize anyone to make copies and perform the work for noncommercial and/or educational purposes providing that my name is reasonably displayed as the composer. I do not under any circumstances authorize selecting portions of the work to appear intact in another person's composition, or to appear under any other composer's name, without my written signed authorization.
The complete video involving 8 Petersburgh artists and all the music can be found at:
http://youtu.be/h8yo02gSKWo