Thomas Clark – composer / digital artist

Tag: band music

  • Nocturne

    2021 . . . . chamber winds and percussion . . . duration: 11 minutes

    To request performance materials and permission, email the composer, tc24@txstate.edu.

  • Mucha’s Light: Ancient Images

    Five sound sketches on the historical paintings of Alfons Mucha (1996/2005)

    I first traveled to the Moravian region of Czechoslovakia in 1991 to conduct my own music at the 26th International Music Festival in Brno. While there, I visited the South Moravian town of Moravský Krumlov. Its castle served as a museum gallery for the epic paintings, Slovanská Epopej, of Alfons Mucha. Better known as the father of art nouveau through his many famous Paris posters, Mucha was deeply interested in Slavic culture and history. The 20 paintings, each a monumental canvas hung as a tapestry, vividly depict both historical and mythical scenes.

    Mucha’s Light: Ancient Images is dedicated to Miroslav Marada, the Moravian gentleman who first showed the paintings to the composer in 1991. A teacher, history buff, and lover of the local wines of south Moravia, Marada fascinated me with elaborate tales, explaining the symbolism of each painting. The five works I selected to sketch musically have a common element, masterfully painted images of exotic light. Composing musical analogs for these ancient images, I incorporated medieval music from the Bohemian/Moravian region of central Europe. The music weaves authentic medieval chant tunes into an intensely contrapuntal fabric, interspersed with modern sparks, streaks, and splashes of sound color. Originally composed for brass quintet, the musical images called for a richer, more varied sound-color palette:

    Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 3 Bb clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 alto saxes, tenor sax, baritone sax, bassoon; 2 F horns, 2 Bb trumpets, 2 trombones, euphonium, tuba; timpani, 3 percussion (misc. unpitched – triangle, sus.cym., etc.; bells, chimes, vibraphone, xylophone)

    I. Star Light (detail of 1. Slavs in their Original Homeland)

    II. Green Light of Mysticism (detail of 17. Holy Mount Athos)

    III. White Light of Learning (detail of 4. The Bulgarian tsar Simeon)

    IV. Lantern Light of Hope (detail of 16. The Last Days of Jan Amos Komenský in Naarden)

    V. Fire Light (detail of 18. The Oath of Omladina Under the Slavic Linden Tree)

  • First Light

    2018      wind ensemble      Duration: 7:30   

    “first dawn”

    “shimmering light”

    First Light is a double reference. It is the term used when a new telescope is commissioned and opens its optics for the first time to capture light. When Texas State University opened its new Performing Arts Center, the 2015 inaugural concert in the acoustically splendid Recital Hall was titled “First Light.”

    The older reference is to native American mythology, which tells origin stories of the First People who emerge from the Dark World into the light of the rising sun (the Blackfoot sun god is called Natosi). In Navajo mythology, “Early on the morning of the fourth day, Little Dawn Boy began to sing his magic song. As he finished the song, an arch of shimmering light, all rose, violet, blue, and every color, and delicate as a veil, began to stretch from the summit of the purple mountain to the top of the white cliff. He then saw a bright Rainbow Bridge grow before his eyes. Singing with delight, he hastened over the Rainbow Bridge. As he ran a wind sprang up and blew a many-colored mist to the top of the cliff.” [First People: American Indian Legends]

    To request performance materials and permission, email BMI-affiliated composer Thomas Clark, tc24@txstate.edu.