Album Notes

From istanbul: a concerto for viola and orchestra
i have never been anything of a
musicologist. I much prefer to find
the colors of a musical environ-
ment by filtering them through my
own experiences, or in this case,
my lack of experience. I have nev-
er been to turkey. But i do know
a wonderful, turkish-born viola
player named osman kivrak. This
concerto is a tourist‘s view of istan-
bul. I enjoyed writing a very, very
american piece about a country i
have only known through nation-
al geographic world maps and
fuzzy cnn new stories. I worked
with osman extensively to find the
things that only a viola can bring
to a piece of music. The fireman's carnival

the clarinetist, ben redwine plays
this. And he really found the exact
right misty tone to bring this piece
to life. When i was eleven years
old, my family moved to a town of
800 in rural pennsylvania. I now
see what a wonderful way this was
to grow up. Each year there was
a fireman‘s carnival at the local
volunteer firehouse, a rusty quon-
set hut a quarter of a mile from our
house. This magical event sprang
up overnight like a mushroom. The ferris wheel, the house
of mirrors and other tiny rides
arrived on trucks driven by greasy
and somewhat frightening carnies. My sisters and i would ride our
bicycles at night on unlit streets
to this suddenly illuminated and
noisy space that the night before
had been an empty overgrown
lot next to the firehouse. The far tortoogas

in january of 2007 i swore that
this would be the year that i got to
score a pirate movie. Alas, no one
called me to score a buccaneer
film of any sort. So i took all the
pirate thoughts that have, quite
frankly, been building up for years
and wrote my own pirate movie. Of course the picture part of this
film is up to you. The orchestra on these three
pieces is again the crackerjack
all-star orchestra. Chris jewel plays the featured bas-
soon part. David lonkevich plays
the flute and piccolo parts- yes
that one aggravating note that
appears over and over again. The
strings section led by terri lazar
and kim miller is always wonder-
ful. Percussionist and timpanist
mark carson has always amazed
me with his pallet of sonic possi-
bilities.