The changing light (violin)
The Changing Light is a work for Violin and Electronics written for violinist Adrianne Munden-Dixon.
The Changing Light
Adrianne Munden-Dixon - violin
In the fall of 2021, Martin Gendelman contacted me about his plan to invite violinist Adrianne Munden-Dixon for a performance at the Savannah Cultural Arts Center as part of the On the Verge concert series. Martin mentioned that Adrianne was interested in performing works by Martin, Peter Van Zandt Lane, and myself at the Savannah concert and a concert to be held at the University of Georgia where Peter was faculty. Martin and I both wrote new works for violin and electronics.
I met Adrianne briefly when she and Martin met me at the Cultural Arts Center to make plans for what the concert would be. Martin wanted to arrange the audience in a way that Adrianne could walk through the audience. The chairs would be arranged on the floor of the performance space with pathways for the mobile performer. The electronics would be 8-channel and these speakers would surround the audience in a ring.
After our brief meeting, I wanted to get a better sense of Adrianne as a performer. I listed to her album “Patterns and Crystals” and was particularly interested in the work Lazaretto. The timbral exploration of the violin was wide-ranging and the playing moving fluidly between skittering, virtuosic, exploratory, and melodic. I wrote to Adrianne and asked her a few questions that would help to inspire the work:
What is a poem you like, or one that is meaningful to you? What piece of music did you play as a child that makes you think of home?
The answer to the first question was The Changing Light by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Part of the answer to the second question intrigued me. Adrianne mentioned the soundtrack to the movie The Snowman. With these two pieces of information and Adrianne’s work on the Patterns and Crystals album, I set out to write something that I thought would work.
The piece received its first performance in Athens, GA on March 24, 2022. The performance at the Savannah Cultural Arts Center took place March 26, 2022. The recording included here is from the 3rd performance of the piece which took place at Georgia Southern University as part of the Channel Noise concert series on April 7, 2022.