Graiser, Brian- Uno per Franco, for percussion sextet (Digital Download)

Uno per Franco, for percussion sextet includes a score and parts.

Print size: Letter

Program Notes:

Uno per Franco: In Memoriam Franco Donatoni

“Uno per Franco” was written in 2014 and premiered by the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music Percussion Ensemble as a part of the composer’s doctoral lecture-recital, under the mentorship of Allen Otte, and was the winning composition of the 2016 Strikeclef Composition Contest (Ensemble Category). The work was conceived as a composition in the style of the influential Italian contemporary composer Franco Donatoni, taking inspiration from his percussion compositions, albeit with an expanded instrumentational palette fit for a globally-sourced 21st-Century composition (Donatoni himself never wrote for West African talking drums or Chinese opera gongs). The title itself is a tribute to one of Donatoni’s own works, “Duo per Bruno” (dedicated to the late Bruno Maderna). As in much of Donatoni’s later work, “Uno per Franco” is marked by distinct “panels” of material, identified by sudden changes in texture, instrumentation, tempo, and dynamics. These structural devices are further marked by the shifting distribution of percussive qualities: pitched vs. unpitched vs. relative-pitched instruments, woods vs. skins vs. metals, dry vs. sustaining sounds, etc. Donatoni’s compositional “games” were the subject of much discussion, and his cleverness and joy are hopefully captured here in this musical tribute that, like Donatoni, is both calculated and flamboyant.

Sample: