Scott Ordway

PREMIERE

Commissioned by the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival for Amy Yang (in memoriam Claude Frank)

Premiere August 6, 2016 at the Newburyport Chamber Music Festival (Newburyport, MA)
Amy Yang, piano
 

MEDIA

NOTE

Breathmark is the first installment of Mare Vitalis, a three-part cycle of independent solo and chamber works, each inspired in a different way by the profound physical, cultural, and spiritual lives of the sea.

Commissioned in memory of the celebrated pianist Claude Frank, this work explores the relationship between the human breath and musical performance, and imagines the ocean as a dynamic, regenerative, breathing organ from which life emerges, and to which it ultimately returns. With each deep breath, I imagine a soul at peace, soaring joyfully over a vast, unbroken expanse of water.

The work’s initial tempo is established by the pace of the performer’s breathing. As the work continues, the phrases lengthen and the connection to the breath gradually becomes a metaphor.

Only when we hold our breath does the world stand still.