Turquoise
Guitar Editions (ASCAP)
continuation
for solo guitar by Philip Collins
Dedicated to Mesut Özgen
TGE 032
ISBN: 978-1-934361-29-0
12 pages
Primary ideas for this work came during the spring of 2008, and it was mostly composed through summer and fall of that year. And yet rewrites and edits continued after the 2009 premiere, and well into 2012. But before that, in 2003, I attended a concert “Cantemir: Classical Crossroads” in which kemence master Ihsan Özgen performed arrangements of Turkish and Western classical repertoire involving blends of both Middle Eastern and Western instruments. I was inspired by the stately eloquence of the music, and I marveled at the compatibility of spirit these two classical cultures share. As a guitarist, I had long been drawn to the oud, the Turkish lute of antiquity. When guitarist Mesut Özgen, Ihsan Özgen’s nephew, invited me to write a solo guitar piece for him I was immediately drawn to the prominent intersection of Western and Mid-Eastern energies that Mesut emanates as a musician. “continuation” first began to take shape through improvisations in a scordatura tuning (second string raised from B to C) that is central to the music’s character. This tuning introduced me to a palette of sonorities that teetered easily between two opposing modalities. In regard to form, the piece builds upon a kind of plowing constancy. The smooth, connective phrasing of Turkish Taksims (solo improvisations) influenced my musical speech. As a result, there are few actual cadences in the piece; its respiration lies in pauses and time-biding segues. The title "continuation" characterizes the music’s ongoing dialect; improvisational, yet deliberate – a life force. I used small case letters for the title to best exemplify the nature of the music's discourse, as well as the meaning of the word, "continuation." Capital letters convey starting points, and my intention was to create more of a continuum, than a succession of discrete episodes.
Philip Collins
July 2013
Santa Cruz, California
Duration: ca. 9:00 min
First Performance: January 23, 2009 by Mesut Özgen at the New Music Works 30th Anniversary Concert, as part of the 2008-09 UCSC Arts & Lectures Season, Santa Cruz, California.
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