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The Whispering Wind (2001)
Michael Gatonska (b. 1967)
Born in Poland, Michael Gatonska studied at the Academy of Music in Krakow before moving to the United States to study at the Manhattan School of Music. Composed in 2001, The Whispering Wind receives its world premiere by the Cabrillo Festival. The composer has written the following notes:
The title for The Whispering Wind comes from a line in the poem “Miracle Hill” by Emerson Blackhorse Mitchell. Composed in 2001, the composition begins with small, “echo-like” statements. Gradually, these melodic fragments, or cells, elongate with slowly graduated harmonies. As new ideas are introduced into the composition, older fragments “whisper” back in various juxtapositions, simultanaeities, and orchestral colorings. In addition, other types of “whispering” occur. Old American hymns fade in and out, and the percussion section sometimes suggests Native American drum circles. Small musical quotes from Ives, Varèse, and MacDowell are embedded into the streams of textures. This basic compositional process continues until the final measures of the music, where the “breathing” orchestra represents the final stanza of Blackhorse Mitchell's poem:
I come again to my Miracle Hill.
At last, I know the all of me—
Out there, beyond, and here upon my hill.
Not recorded
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