chamber orchestra
This Isn’t Silence was written in 1998 with assistance from the Canada Council for the Arts. At the time I was interested in things that grow and change: a musical idea will sometimes grow and grow until you think it can’t grow any more, then grow a little more. I wondered if it were possible to push it over the top.
The title comes from a direction in the score where, at the climax of the work, the only player with an empty bar is one of the percussionists, who needs to change instruments. In his one blank measure I found that I had written This isn’t silence.
The present version, revised over the summer of 2001 and premiered by the Oakland Symphony, is about three minutes shorter than the original 1998 version.
Brian Current
- Score available at CMC, Région du Québec.
- Recording: available at SMCQ’s office