Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City
As the scent of spring rain...
an overture for winds, brass, and percussion
(2005)
Duration: 3'
see also Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City
PROFESSIONAL
Commissioned by:
the Rutgers Wind Ensemble for the 2005 CBDNA National Conference, New York City
Picc, 2Fl, Ob, Bsn, CBsn, EbClar, 3Clar, BClar, SSax, ASax, TSax, BSax, 2Trpt, 4Hn, 2Trb, BTrb, Euph, Tba, Pno, 6Perc (2Glock/ Crot/ Mar/ Vibr/ Tri/ T-T/ TubBells/ WindCh/ SusCym/ RideCym/ 3TunedButtonGongs/ BD/ WBl)
Parts available for hire.
Score available for sale from OK Feel Good Music, or from Shattinger Music.
The Rivers of Bowery is an overture with a triumphant vision of the City as complex machine, capable of incubating the lowest in human nature as well as harnessing the best of Man's intentions. The title comes directly from Allen Ginsberg's glorious chronicle of Beat counterculture, Howl. Written in 1956, in a tenement about 2 blocks from where I live on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Howl celebrates the Beat counterculture by breathlessly rejoicing in the underdog grit of Ginsberg's beloved bohemia. The image is extracted from the line:
...who ate the lamb stew of the imagination or digested the crab at the muddy bottom of the rivers of Bowery.
Ginsberg's river is a rush of people, and not the usual sunny city dwellers of an E.B. White essay or an O'Henry story, but his specific anti-community of the lost, the drugged, and the outcast. Ginsberg presents his city as possessing a triumphant spirit, neighbors piled on top of each other, never letting each other down despite being torn apart by society and by themselves.
Symphony No. 1, My Hands Are a City (2008-9) is a 3-mvt expansion of The Rivers of Bowery.
read a longer progam note with more background on this work in the composer's notebook
Download program note.
Recorded on: 
RECENT PERFORMANCES
Crane Wind Ensemble, Helen M. Hosmer Concert Hall, Potsdam NY, Brian K. Doyle, conductor | LIVE STREAM - Sep 14 2012
James Logan Wind Symphony, JLHS Performing Arts Center, Union City, CA, Ramiro Barrera, conductor - May 04 2012
Boston University Wind Ensemble, Tsai Performance Center, Boston MA, David Martins, conductor - Nov 18 2010
