Description
Program Notes
Poéme Bucolique was written in 2022 for a collaboration between the Hartt School composers, the Hartt School Community Division chamber music program, and the New Britain Museum of Modern American Art. The basis for this work was two paintings by American artists with connections to Connecticut – Charles’s Sheeler’s On a Connecticut Theme #3 and Early Morning Light by John Ferguson Wier. Each of these paintings contrast Connecticut’s pastoral landscapes with infrastructure, wether that be of suburban expansion or of the railroad. Musically this is represented through the contrasts of texture and rhythm, with harmonics being played in contrast with a stringent variety of pizzicato, and lilting rhythmic patterns juxtaposed with more forward-driving dotted rhythms.
This work received its premiere at the Greater Hartford Academy of the Arts Recital Hall in April, 2022.