Cityscapes

May 2018

String ensemble.

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Based on a series of images on display at the Ashmolean museum for their exhibition 'America's Cool Modernism: O'Keeffe to Hopper', the piece aims to capture the various atmospheres of 1920's and 1930's American cities. The music reflects on elements of the ‘Roaring Twenties’ through the use of fused jazz sounds, as well as capturing the busy industrial scene by means of fast-paced hypnotic 'neo-minimalist' repetition.

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The fusion of various styles aims to portray both the energetic city of Joseph Stella's vibrant oil painting through to the darker nature of the industrial landscape displayed in paintings such as Edward Hopper’s Manhattan Bridge Loop. Written for the an Ashmolean event which celebrates the exhibition of works by American artists that have never been exhibited outside the USA, this piece reflects some of the finest artwork of the first half of the 20th century and celebrates their first sighting in the UK. The movements are based on four images from the exhibition:

I: I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold

II: Erie Underpass

III: Night in the Park

IV: Metropolitan Port

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