Concerto for the First Sunday of New Year (©2008) [8:05] 

"Concerto for the First Sunday of New Year" was composed for David Fulmer, Eliot Gattegno  and the Second Instrumental Unit.

Within this work fragments of German-Baroque music involving new-year celebrations are embraced and refashioned.  Through particular procedures of self-replicating systems the music is transformed and re-grown.  Here fractal geometry and cellular automata propel new outgrowths, amplifications, and even exaggerations of references to pre-existing passages of music from the eighteenth century into interesting musical syntaxes.  Such new creations seem to me entirely novel, and I am increasingly fascinated by the manner in which entirely fresh energies may be drawn from dynamic forces embodied in earlier music.  This work is in some sense a miniature double concerto for soprano saxophone and violin where the violoncello and double bass are fashioned as a hyper-hybrid basso continuo. Each of the three movements proceeds in simplicity, each structural section becoming shorter and more brief.  The concerto, opening with an overly spirited allegro assai, leads directly into a recitative/arioso and concludes with a chorale, which –in the course of its unfolding- descends from scarcely-audible harmonies cast in high spectral overtones.

-Jonathan Dawe