Arzan Legacy (2015)
for five bassoons and contrabassoon. 4.5 min.
This piece was the winner of the 2015 Bacoustics Composition Arrangement Contest, and was premiered at the NJMEA State Convention, under the direction of Dr. Christopher Wickham. This piece was also performed on the Bacoustics Educational Outreach Tour (2016), where I conducted the group at around 10 high schools all over New Jersey.
Arzan Legacy is about combining two styles of music together, the octatonic mournfulness of James Barnes and heavy metal. During one semester of Wind Ensemble at Rutgers, we played James Barnes' Third Symphony, and I immediately fell in love with the piece: the harmonic language, the use of the octatonic scale, the extreme emotions that were put into the music, and many other aspects of the piece. I was also listening to my favorite heavy metal band, Periphery. Periphery has many songs that have 9 beat patterns, 5-eighth note patterns, or other patterns that are put over 4/4, and the rhythmic displacement of each of these patterns is really cool. All in all, I tried to combine the octatonic language of James Barnes with the rhythmic qualities of Periphery.
