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CONCERTO FOR JAZZ GUITAR: KATRINA (2016)

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orchestra and e. guitar
duration c. 20′

Audio Excerpts:
http://www.djsparr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SPARR_ConcertoForJazzGuitarKATRINA_Excerpt1_Opening.mp3
http://www.djsparr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SPARR_ConcertoForJazzGuitarKATRINA_Excerpt5_Cadenza.mp3
http://www.djsparr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SPARR_ConcertoForJazzGuitarKATRINA_Excerpt6_End.mp3
http://www.djsparr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SPARR_ConcertoForJazzGuitarKATRINA_Excerpt4_Flute.mp3
http://www.djsparr.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/SPARR_ConcertoForJazzGuitarKATRINA_Excerpt3_Middle.mp3

– duration: c. 10’

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  • INSTRUMENTATION

    2 Flutes
    2 Oboes
    2 Clarinets in A
    2 Bassoons

    4 Horns in F
    2 Trumpets in C
    2 Trombones
    Bass Trombone
    Tuba

    Timpani
    3 Percussion
    1. Two Tibetan Singing Bowls (high, low), Bass Drum, Vibraphone. Corrugaphone (whirly tube), Egg Shaker.
    2. Triangle, Strings of bells, Glockenspiel, Lion’s Roar, congas, Corrugaphone (whirly tube).
    3. Crotales (two octaves), 2 suspended cymbals, tuned plastic pipes, sand blocks.

    Electric Bass
    Electric Guitar
    Hammond Organ

    Strings

    Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra: Katrina
    Duration c. 20 minutes.

    D.J. Sparr’s Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra: Katrina is a work that draws as inspiration metaphors from epic poems as a connection to victory in the face of overwhelming odds. Written for Ted Ludwig, a refugee of Hurricane Katrina who now lives in Little Rock, it ties our understanding of a horrific tragedy to the story of the Great Flood. In this tale, the protagonist character—known in different cultures as Ziusudra, Gilgamesh, or Noah—manages to escape the rising floodwaters and find redemption and strength in a new home. Sparr ties the ancient to the modern by mixing element s of ancient Sumerian string music with quotations of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps and Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie’s When the Levee Breaks (which was inspired by the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927).

    Recalling a conversation between Mr. Ludwig and himself, the composer says:

    “He described to me the moment he left New Orleans. It was beautiful day. In fact, he said, “one of the most beautiful days you could imagine, but we all knew to get out of there.” That day inspired the opening of the piece. Ringing bells and triangles lead to strings entering playing overlapping chords from Giant Steps. I thought it was an appropriate metaphor for the personal struggle to leave home behind.”

    The soloist improvises over long sustained chords representing the rising sun and sky, but with elements of rain-drops hovering above and strings of Tibetan bells in the background. Following this is the first articulation of a written out melody, loosely based on When the Levee Breaks. As the work progresses, there is a close association with Noah’s tale: an evocation of floating for long spans and the release of birds to search for land. The conclusion, described in the score as “The Temple of Enki at Erdu,” refers to one of the most important cult centers throughout the history of Mesopotamia, purportedly visited not only by worshipers, but by the deities themselves. In Sumerian mythology, Eridu was the home of the Abzu temple of the water god Enki. Like all the Sumerian and Babylonian gods, Enki began as a local god, who eventually came to share the rule of the cosmos. His kingdom was the sweet waters that lay below Earth. As this is the place where flood myth’s protagonist finally finds his home and strength, so too is it a metaphor for Ted Ludwig finding his home in Little Rock.

    *Note by Jacob Wallace

    request performance materials:
    Bill Holab Music

    Perusal Score PDF

    Listen to perusal audio:

    Dreams Of the Old Believers Perusal

    Review: Guitarist Ludwig earns his ovation
    The Maumelle Performing Arts Center on Saturday night was as full as it’s been for an Arkansas Symphony Orchestra concert. It was most likely a tribute to popular jazz guitarist Ted Ludwig, who has repeatedly proved that he is an ineffable treasure since his arrival in Little Rock in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina blew him out of New Orleans.

    Ludwig was soloing in the world premiere of D.J. Sparr’s Concerto for Jazz Guitar and Orchestra: Katrina, the first work of its kind, written not only for Ludwig but around him. The solo part is highly improvisatory, which is what Ludwig does best, so today’s audience, as well as any future listeners, won’t ever hear it quite the same way as did the Saturday audience that warmly acclaimed him on his entrance and gave him a subsequent ovation (that earned them an encore with a member of Ludwig’s trio, former ASO bassist Joe Vick).

    Ludwig’s playing was, as always, brilliant, a sort of a center of calm in the midst of an orchestral part through which Sparr tone-paints Ludwig’s own journey, from a clear but menacing day in New Orleans through the storm, its exceedingly eerie aftermath and finally Ludwig’s landing in Little Rock. The orchestra, under the baton of Music Director Philip Mann, provided waves of sound and some fun battery sound and visual effects (including three percussionists waving orange [whirly tubes] in the midst of the noisy storm).

    Mann tied the concerto neatly to the dark, brooding and bitingly satiric Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich (which the composer successfully simultaneously used to get back into the good graces of, while secretly mocking, Josef Stalin and oafish Soviet officials). He either consciously or unconsciously played up the circus-y aspects of the second movement’s club-footed waltz, a link to the similar sounds he got out of the orchestra in Leonard Bernstein’s rowdy, though moderately tempo-ed Candide Overture; the finale was a suitably intense sonic blast that formed a suitable blow-out close to the orchestra’s 2015-16 Masterworks Series.

    Author: ERIC E. HARRISON
    Publication: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
    Date: April 10, 2016

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