Nature's Chopsticks, for large flex ensemble, SCORE

High-medium-low flex Instrumentation for large, conducted ensemble

High-medium-low parts available for all reasonable transpostions and clefs.

4:45

A striking picture of a sandhill crane using its astoundingly long beak to eat a worm, along with its caption of “Nature’s Chopsticks” released a riot of musings about chicken-egg and life-imitating-art relationships. How odd to use chopsticks as a metaphor for this long beak! Surely Nature did not design the beak in the image of the chopsticks! If anything it would be the other way around. But what if we know far more about chopsticks (or art!) than sandhill crane beaks (or life!), so that we come by this kind of reverse metaphor honestly? Nature’s Chopsticks intermixes materials from “real” life (phone numbers, current quotations from newspapers and Facebook statuses) with indeterminate musical materials (high-as-possible pitches and clusters), and minimalist textures, pitches, and rhythms. It was written especially for the JFCA Composers Orchestra with its eclectic and changeable instrumentation. It is a piece that can be performed by a group as small as a dozen or so and as big as a large orchestra or band.