Compositions

Variances

for jazz guitar, percussion, piano and any number of ad lib shadow players (2017, 20’)

first performance: Opéra de Rouen, France , November 24th 2017, by Ensemble Variances

The roots of Variances lie in a selection of Hispano/Chilean folk music, partly ritual, partly dance music. The structure of this music, and to some degree the melodic and harmonic content as well as the rhythm, have informed the composition process. The original music gradually having been pulled out from underneath the growing composition, the final result is an entirely autonomous work, with very different moods and musical substance. However, a shadow of the original music still remains…

Yet another aspect of shadow music can be found in the piece. The basis of the piece is formed by a trio of jazz guitar, percussion and piano; the work can actually be performed as a trio piece. Marinissen then created a set of shadow parts, following and mirroring the trio, that can be freely instrumentated by an ensemble of any size or sorts. The shadow players rely entirely on the trio for entrances and coordination. In this way, the ensemble can easily be different from concert to concert.

The piece thus links up with the tradition of works like Terry Riley’s In C and Gavin Bryars’ Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, which allow any number and combination of musicians to get together and play.

The composition of Variances was kindly supported by the Dutch Fonds Podiumkunsten.

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