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(2-8 MB mp3 file)

Sirocco is a new modern dance work by choreographer Karis Sloss which was performed by her professional dance troupe, the Eclectic Edge Ensemble; four performances in mid July 2007 drew nearly 600 enthusiastic audience members. The 45-minute score includes music by three separate composers, including Warren Park. A special order CD of Music from Sirocco is available through Warren Park Music (please click the button below with the clouds photo). The music for Sirocco was chosen by Karis Sloss from previously written compositions and from music written specifically for this production. Here below are audio samples from Sirocco of music written by Warren Park, for your listening pleasure, with comments from him.

Slow 5 & 6   This is the nickname we gave this short segue piece that was intended to connect two scenes, but was never used in the final show. This simple piece for a small chamber group intentionally introduces the rhythm of a pattern of 5 beats followed by 6 beats in a cycle. This pattern is used again, faster, in Morning After, below. The ‘5’ that begins that pattern is subdivided using eighth notes this way: 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2 while the second portion of the cycle, the six beat part, still using eighth notes, adds another beat to the pattern: 1-2-3, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2, 1-2. The resulting 11 beat loop is a interesting rhythmic feature to work with. All the instruments you hear are computer-based voices found within the Garritan Personal Orchestra program. In other words, the marimba, harp, violin, bass clarinet, bass etc. you hear, that sound so much like real players, are actually instrumental voices I am controlling carefully via computer programming.

Intro to Town   Karis chose part of the second half of my already-written Mesmer’s Waltz (for Tenor Sax, Piano and Bass) for use in this section of the story. Again the instrumental sounds are computer-based voices, not live players, although I was able to get them to sound pretty lively via the computer programming.

Workers Song   This piece is a wholly new work I wrote for this production. It is entirely percussion instruments, found in the Garritan Orchestra (computer-based sounds). I was able to incorporate some very authentic sounds from real African and Asian instruments—but all the notes, durations, attacks, rhythms are all my own creation. This sounds like a collection of really fine live percussionists. In the show itself, one of the other composers added a few heavier percussion sounds to my track.

Lover's Dance   This is a piano solo, which I wrote and recorded, that I have named Poetic License. It appears here and on the Music from Sirocco CD in its complete form (around six minutes), while Karis used only the first half for her section of the show called Lover’s Dance.

Soloist Calms Crowd   In the show itself, this section was a recorded piano solo I wrote and performed myself of a waltz that Bobb Fantauzzo, the Native American flute specialist, played over, in live performance. The Music from Sirocco CD includes that duet. What you hear on this audio sample, however, is a more complete solo piano version of the same tune, played in a 4/4 rhythm instead of a waltz.

Morning After   This is the most complex piece I wrote for Sirocco. It starts out with a minute or so of very spooky, non-tonal, atmospheric writing that was put to very good use in the dance. This is followed by a longer section that features once again the same 5 & 6 rhythm pattern introduced in Slow 5 & 6 above. This piece has the quality of a very odd-instrumentation orchestra starting out in a sort of brooding, dark manner at first, but that soon gives way to a lighter more lyrical section featuring the bassoon and violin in a peaceful duet, all still following the 11 beat rhythm pattern. Again, the show used only the first 3/4 of this piece; it appears here and on the CD in its entirety.

Waltzing Into Madness   This is a piece written for Sirocco for a very dramatic section involving a fatal fight between the lovers. In the story, the magic Sirocco winds have seized the town and made everyone go mad. The choreographer chose a different piece by another composer for the performance, but the qualities imparted here do convey the idea that things are all becoming detached and unhinged. It is an exercise in a continuous accelerando, leading to a climax that represents the murdered woman’s soul torn from her unnaturally: listen for the clanging handbells that sound desperate, spilling out violently, then helplessly finally drifting away. Once again, all the instrumental voices used here are computer-based.

My solo piano pieces largely were written over the last three decades for performance at casual, small concert venues, such as coffee houses and other informal settings as part of variety performances. They are composed by memorization growing out of several improvisation sessions. The form and structure take shape over the course of several repeated play-throughs, keeping and developing the material I like the most. Three of the following tunes were written in 2008 with less planning and more improv featured.

Powderhorn Park   This is a simple and melodic piano solo written for the Delian’s Society’s Suite #1. Its website is: http://www.newmusicclassics.com/delian_suite.html. The Delian Society is an on-line club of composers who value and support tonal music, who write accessible music that demonstrates that not all music of today is harsh and forbidding. Listen to some of the other entries too, you’ll enjoy them.

A Drunken Ballerina   This is an old tune now which has been performed many times over the years. The music is supposed to represent the idea of a tipsy dancer improvising movements without very much planning or forethought. The gestures are sometimes grand and hyper, flouncy and exaggerated without very much continuity. Sometimes things get repeated illogically with abrupt contrasts that don't make very much sense. (3:28)

Jig   This is another tune from about 20 or more years ago. It is all in the traditional 6/8 rhythm with quiet and lyrical passages that lead to more grand expansiveness and continuous building. It is like a typical Irish jig that gets carried away, adding excitement as it progresses, and concluding in a very grandiose ending that no usual jig would have. (4:47)

My First Bicycle   Written originally about 1975, this older piano solo tells a story of sorts. The main character is learning how to ride his/her first bicycle. In the beginning the music keeps the bike rider close to home in familiar and comfortable territory, safe ground. Sometimes the feeling of the music builds to more of a cruising speed, still fairly secure but more adventuresome. After a while, a period of dangerous unbalance happens where the rider feels out of control—maybe a downhill plunge he/she was not expecting—but the music leads to a faster and more exhilarating stretch, still a bit out-of-control, but not losing balance all together. Finally a corner is turned and the rider is back on their home block in safe and familiar territory....a wild, exciting ride with a new and unexplored mode of transportation. (4:50)

Mystical Ebb and Flow (2008) This is a loosely-structured improvisation-based piano solo that explores the feeling of ebb and flow within a slow and repeating rhythm, moving from soft to loud and back. (6:14)

Weave a Gossamer Web (2008) Another of the new improv-based piano tunes, this one working with a repeated 5/4 rhythm. (4:20)

May Meditation (2008) The last of my piano improvisations for spring 2008. This one is even more loosely structured, mostly slow and quiet, very reverential. (5:31)