Premiere: IIIz+ reading session, Rice University, Houston, TX, September 20th, 2016

 

Duration:  ca. 6 min

 

Program Note:

 

Puppies in the Snow was composed for IIIz+ for their residency at Rice University and is inspired by the Nagasawa Rosetsu’s painting of the same name at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This Japanese watercolor has a playful, minimalist approach to it; to reflect this, I combined jazz saxophone and bass with sparse accompaniment using the three zithers and percussion. Writing for Eastern instruments and familiarizing myself with the repertoire of this music was a particular challenge, but I found a certain improvisatory character to the music which blended well with the jazz language with which I’m familiar.