Rush Hour (1999, 2000)
for amplified string quartet, clarinet, and drum set
duration: 8'
Commissioned by the Parsons Dance Company, with funding from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust
Premiered May 25-30, 1999. The Joyce Theater, New York, NY.
Choreographed by Robert Battle.
This work is very pop music-inspired. The musical phrases are all 4 or 8 bars long, and there's a strong backbeat (played on a steel pipe). I recently revised and orchestrated this piece as the last movement of my Percussion Concerto. In the Fall of 2000, I made a third arrangement - for electric string quartet and drum set. (The original score was for five percussionists, rather than a single drum set player. That number of players - and instruments - is prohibitive for touring.)