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Music for Four Big Instruments (jazz quartet adaptation for Tuba, Piano, Double Bass and Drum Set).
Also available as:
Music
for Two Big Instruments
(Tuba
and Piano).
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Whenever I mentioned to non-musician friends that I was composing a work for tuba and piano, the response was usually one of surprise and barely muffled laughter. The exclamation, "Tuba, eh? What a funny instrument!" was often accompanied by exaggerated hand and mouth gestures that somewhat resembled a trout attempting to inflate a balloon. I knew I had my work cut out for me. Thus, the arrival of Music for Two Big Instruments, born of my desire to create good PR for a sometimes beleaguered and misunderstood instrument.
I was delighted when L.A. Phil tubist Norm Pearson and his pianist wife Cindy Williams invited me to write this duet for them, because although people understand the orchestral tuba's gallant role in seating the pitch and rhythm for the rest of the band, they know little of the F tuba's agility or gorgeous lyrical qualities. Thus, I chose two contrasting themes, one uptempo and the other nearly a jazz ballad, to showcase just how beautiful and diverse this instrument really is.
Alan Baer and Brad Haag brought the duet version into the world in a beautiful performance captured on Alan’s 2005 debut CD, Coast to Coast. A few months after recording, Alan found himself with the opportunity to perform the piece in an expanded version in Portugal with a jazz rhythm section, and asked me if I was game. What he didn’t know is that as I was composing the duet, I had always heard two additional big instruments, bass and drums, playing along with this music in my head. It’s wonderful to get them out of my head, onto the page, and into the air, thus: “Music for Four Big Instruments.”
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Music for Two Big Instruments is featured on Alan Baer's 2005 CD, Coast to Coast, on Baer Tracks Records BTM 001. Click CD for more info, plus a full review. |
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Music for Two Big Instruments is featured on the 2007 Innova Recordings CD, Notes from the Kelp (innova 683). Click CD for more info. |
Alex Shapiro and the anniversary of the premiere of Music for Two Big Instruments were the subject of the February 11, 2017 segment of Composers Datebook, a daily two-minute syndicated radio program produced by American Public Media in association with the American Composers Forum. You can listen to host John Zech's amusing description by clicking here and then clicking the "play" arrow at the top of the page
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"Music for Two Big Instruments is brilliantly crafted. It takes commitment to be other than clever, and Alex has it. She treats the tuba exactly like a French horn with an extended lower range, but takes advantage of its power without losing lyricism." — Dennis Bathory-Kitsz
"...a very powerful piece.... the perfect intro for an excellent CD!" — Sérgio Carolino, Tuba News
"First think of two really big instruments, and then mentally pair them in a duet. Bet you didn’t think of a piano and a tuba. But Ms. Shapiro did, then imaginatively named the resulting duet, “Music for Two Big Instruments”. And a more surprising lyrical pairing would be hard to imagine except it be the music of Ponchielli’s “Dance of The Hours” and Walt Disney’s impossibly graceful hippo ballerinas. Say what? A lyrical tuba? Betcherass — and beautifully, too." — A.C. Douglas, Sounds & Fury
"Music for Two Big Instruments is remarkable... I think this deserves some kind of award. I wouldn't automatically think that just the tuba and piano couldn't work together for very long, but [Alex has] succeeded in making them do so, and very well at that." — Barry Schrader
"...lovely and delicately complex..." — Peggy Hall Kaplan, Malibu Surfside News
"One might consider this a sound track for the movie of your dreams." — Sherry Kloss, Mu Phi Epsilon's "The Triangle"
"The tuba works very well in this piece, and it’s great to hear the instrument being used so lyrically and in a way that it is so exposed." — David Toub, Sequenza21
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