A Shadow That Falls (2019) for percussion and fixed media
by Tom Williams
performed by Patti Cudd
‘I’m going to Flicker for a moment
And tell you the tale of a shadow
That falls at dusk…’ (Alice Oswald)
A Shadow that Falls was composed for the French percussionist Thierry Miroglio and is for unpitched percussion and electroacoustic fixed media. The fixed media is composed from sample recordings of Miroglio playing. There is no conventional written score for the performer, instead there is a ‘listening score’. The percussionist improvises to the fixed media, stereo track that accompanies the player and to the listening score that only they hear on a third, private track. To shape and inspire their performance the percussionist hears lines and words taken from the poem Shadow (2015) by the English contemporary poet Alice Oswald. There is a sense of revealing and unfolding, of emptiness, of mindfulness in the performance. The work requires no music stand and, where possible, asks for special low lighting to generate silhouettes (shadows) around the performer.
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