Little Pieces from My Heart
Instrumentation: Flute, Piano, Percussion, Strings
Movements and length
- Singing, 2:06
- Sweet Peas, 3:18
- Pyrets Polska, 4:48
- The Ruby that Fell from the Sky, 4:01
- Night Terror, 1:50
- Pavane, 5:23
- The Snake Charmer, 3:48
©2004
Publisher: Reese & Hassing Music
Description
Little Pieces From My Heart is a suite of short compositions that tell stories about my family. We are a family of story-tellers. Big family gatherings inevitably end with one of us telling the others a story on someone. When I got the commission from the San José Chamber Orchestra, I decided to take my inspiration from these family stories. A story about my Swedish grandmother became the dance Pyrets Polska. I explore Middle-Eastern melody and rhythm in The Snake Charmer, a story about my mother. Pavane communicates a child’s first understanding of death with a concerted story for violin and viola. In Sweet Peas, a string quartet solos with the orchestra to describe feeling I had when my mother put these flowers in my room. In Singing, I treat the orchestra as a choir to celebrate my daughter’s joy in singing.