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Fabrication 13: Monster
after Caryl Churchill's Blue Kettle 
2008

 2 flutes 2º doubling piccolo
2 oboes 2º doubling english horn 
2 clarinets 
2 bassoons 1º doubling tenoroon 
2 horns
2 trumpets 1º doubling piccolo trumpet in Bb 
2 trombones
2 percussion
  1: small tambourine, mounted tambourine, 2 timbales, vibraphone
  2: 2 bongos, hi-hat, mixing bowl, large tambourine, mounted tambourine
strings

duration 6' 

commissioned by The American Composers Forum
first performance:
Boston Modern Orchestral Project, cond. Gil Rose
2008 Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music /ICA Theater / September 21, 2008

SCORE

RECORDING—first performance 
    cd or digital download 
  of studio version 
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PROGRAM NOTE:
I typically write music with fairly involved programmatic intentions along with forms that echo or amplify
them. However, I also enjoy music that simply unfolds a process or a ‘conceit’. Fabrication 13: Monster is a component part of a larger 32-movement cycle for various ensembles ranging from solos and duos to works for orchestra. These Fabrications explore more mechanical approaches to generating music. Each has a subtitle; a synonym of ‘fabrication’ which says something about the piece itself.

In Caryl Churchill's disturbing play, Blue Kettle, a man seems to be playing a con trick on a elderly woman, pretending to be her long-lost son. As the play continues the word ‘blue’ and then the word ‘kettle’ are dropped into the dialogue as if they belonged there. These words arrive more frequently and jostle out any clear meaning. Increasingly, too, the words are cut into little pieces. The final pages include lines such as ”How bl bl bl this was bl son?” “Because I ket ket documents, his passport bl stuff, bl ket for a laugh” “ Ket b tle die of?” all spoken as if nothing strange is happening. Fabrication 13: Monster consists of a whirling single line interrupted by two parallel chains of pitches which gradually, as in the play, force out the “narrative” creating a ‘monster’

see also Fabrications