Thomas Clark – composer / digital artist

Category: 1970-79

  • Animated Landscapes 2

    Olympic Shores

    1975 . . . wind ensemble . . . 9 minutes

    The next in the series begun with the 1971 original, Nocturne for orchestra, Olympic Shores was scored for wind ensemble. A large 1974 work for double choir, brass, and tape, Shores of Infinity, preceded it. While the same textural approach to a large instrumental ensemble continued, the title reflected my Pacific Lutheran University experience in Washington state the previous year.

    Olympic Shores

    Clark 1975 (TC-31)

    NTSU (now UNT) Symphony Band

    A chamber music piece titled Shores (TC-44) followed in 1978, which opened a new stream of writing for me with its completely non-metric time notation, bright arpeggiated pitch constellations, and oscillations animating the harmony and the texture.

    Though it was performed in 1978 in Denton by the NTSU New Music Performance Lab, I’ve not been able to salvage an old recording.

  • Animated Landscapes

    Nocturne

    1976 Interlochen with Prof. Bassett

    The idea of animating an otherwise static sound mass, devoid of progressive harmony, was a quintessential feature of what I came to think of as the Midwestern Style of 1960s and 1970s large ensemble music. Successful models included prize winning pieces such as (my teacher) Leslie Bassett’s Variations for Orchestra (1966), Donald Erb’s The Seventh Trumpet (1969), and Joseph Schwantner’s …and the mountains rising nowhere (1977) and Aftertones of Infinity (1979).

    As a graduate student at the University of Michigan in 1973, I composed my second orchestra piece. The title, Animated Landscapes, was inspired by John Cage’s famous Imaginary Landscapes No. 4, which we performed as I was an ensemble member of Contemporary Directions.

    Animated Landscapes

    Nocturne for orchestra

    1971 (TC-25)

    U.Mich. Symphony Orchestra

  • Geography of the Chronosphere

    1975 . . . piano (12 minutes)

    Excerpts:

    1. precession of the equinoxes

    2. Stonehenge at dawn

    3. Heraclitean vortex

    4. lunar litany

  • CELESTIAL CEREMONIES

    electronic music      total duration: 12 minutes      1976 rev. 2017      Ann Arbor, MI and San Marcos, TX

    I. Dark Energy

    II. Black Hole

    III. Gravitation

    IV. Luminescence

  • Geography of the Chronosphere

    piano      duration: 10 minutes

    Ann Arbor, Michigan      February 1975

    1. Precession of the equinoxes
    2. Stonehenge at dawn
    3. Heraclitean Vortex
    4. Lunar litany

  • Tyger

    music inspired by the William Blake poem                                                           flute, alto sax, trombone, double bass, percussion      duration: 6 minutes

    1970 rev 1972      Ann Arbor, Michigan

  • ILLUMINATIONS: 3 Refractions of Time

    1976 . . . symphony orchestra (picc, 2 fl, 2 ob, Eng. hn, 2 clar, bass cl, 2 bsn, contrabsn; 4 hn, 3 trp, 3 tbn, tuba; timp, 3 perc, piano/celeste, harp; strings) . . . (19 min.)

    Bicentennial commission from the Federation of Women’s Clubs; premiered by the World Youth Symphony, Interlochen, Michigan

    1. PROJECTION (future)

    2. REFLECTION (past)

    3. EMANATION (present)

  • Animated Landscapes

    picc, 2 fl, 2 ob, Eng.hn, 2 cl, bass cl, 2 bsn, contra-bsn, 4 horns, 3 trp, 3 tbn, tuba, timp,  2 perc, celeste, harp, strings                                                              Duration: 9 minutes

  • Microscopic Episodes

    1974 . . . picc, 2 fl, 2 ob, Eng.hn, Eb cl, 3 Bb cl, alto cl, bass cl, 2 bsn, contra-bsn, alto sax, tenor sax, bari sax, 4 horns, 4 trp, 3 tbn, euph, tuba, timp, harp, 4 perc (9 minutes

    Dedicated to the memory of my father, who spent much of his life watching and counting the little creatures of the mystical microcosm

    1. Protozoan picnic

    2. Bacterial biogenesis

    3. Attack of the antibodies