STACY GARROP • COMPOSER

AUDIO
Nicholas Phillips, piano
Impressions • Blue Griffin Recording BGR 409 • Purchase recording

YEAR COMPOSED
2015

COMMISSIONER
Wisconsin Music Teachers Association and MTNA

ORDERING SCORES
Theodore Presser Company
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PROGRAM NOTES
I began hiking in the Rocky Mountain National Park in northern Colorado when I was in my early twenties. RMNP is home to some of the most gorgeous mountains in North America, encompassing 265,000 acres of wilderness, flora, and fauna. Among the park’s numerous summits is Longs Peak, a mountain that is 14,259 feet high (the highest in the region). From my earliest days of hiking, I was drawn to Longs Peak, as well as to a jagged stretch of rock formations that link Longs Peak to Pagoda Mountain (which stands at 13,497 feet). These formations are called the Keyboard of the Winds, as their thin, spindly peaks loosely suggest the splintered keys of an old, broken piano.

One summer, I made the ascent to Pagoda Mountain using a route that took me along the right side of the Keyboard of the Winds. My hiking partner and I started up the trail in the pre-dawn hours, and the weather was stormy. Dawn had broken by the time we reached the base of the Keyboard, but its peaks were still surrounded by clouds. As we climbed higher and higher, the Keyboard’s thin spires became visible, along with the top of Pagoda Mountain. We reached the summit of Pagoda, admired the view (what we could see through the clouds), and made our descent.

My piece is a tribute to the Keyboard of the Winds. The fast, whirling gestures depict swirling clouds, and the musical high points represent a hiker reaching the peaks of the Keyboard. I have contrasted these sections with quiet, introspective material; these embody the hiker quietly surveying the grandeur and beauty of the valley below (on a cloudless day), as well as the soaring pinnacles of Longs Peak and Pagoda Mountain overhead.
-S.G.

YEAR COMPOSED
2016

COMMISSIONER
Sun He

ORDERING SCORES
Theodore Presser Company
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PROGRAM NOTES
Stormy, Husky, Brawling takes its name from the 4th line of the poem Chicago, written by the American poet Carl Sandburg. Penned in 1916, the city of Chicago served at that time as the heart of the meatpacking and railroad industries. The poem’s lines mingle the dark underbelly of the city (“And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger”) with immense pride felt by its inhabitants (“Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and course and strong and cunning”). As a Chicagoan myself, I find much of Sandburg’s unabashed view of the city very appealing and still relevant over a hundred years later.

When bass trombonist Sun He commissioned me for a solo trombone piece, he mentioned his deep love for Chicago. He wrote to me in an email: “I remember the first time I walked on the street in Chicago, by the corner of Michigan and Roosevelt, and how I felt the energy of this city almost brought my blood to a boil...” His words inspired me to write a piece that conveys the beating pulse of the city, as well as its grandeur. Carl Sandburg’s poem became the perfect inspiration to tell the story of the pride Sun He and I have for Chicago.

Sun He has dedicated Stormy, Husky, Brawling to Jane Addams and the Hull House of Chicago. Ms. Addams (1860-1935) was a distinguished sociologist, social worker, philosopher, and author, who opened the Hull House in 1889. She provided many services to immigrant families at the Hull House, including kindergarten, day care, an employment bureau, and classes in English, citizenship, music, theater, and the arts.
-S.G.