Giant Hummingbirds for cello and double bass
My father is president of the Buffalo Ornithological Society, and I have always felt a special sense of comfort when I am in the presence of birds. At Avaloch Farm Music Institute where cellist Amanda Gookin and I workshopped this piece, hummingbirds would frequent the nearby gardens. Ultra-slow motion videos of them in flight inspired the battuto technique in which the bow bounces on double-stops. I find the resonance of this technique with both players playing two or more notes at once resembles my favorite range of the marimba. I was also interested in the identity of the cello and bass as members of the Baroque continuo section, which historically play the same line in octaves. Amanda and I had also been studying Schnittke’s Hymnus where the two instruments split into four-part harmony, and I wanted to continue to explore the thickness of texture that harmony between these instruments can achieve. I imagine Giant Hummingbirds to be the script for a minimalist migration – a route full of detours with room for improvisation through environments, drifting colors, and dark timbres created by a cello-bass “super-instrument.”