Masks and Machines

Masks and Machines (2015) was commissioned by a consortium of wind bands organized by Timothy Shade in honor of Gary Green's retirement from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. Masks and Machines is inspired by the early twentieth century works of Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer, and the Neoclassical music of Igor Stravinsky. The composer admires the simplicity of shapes and color in Schlemmer's works such as the "Bauhaus Stairway" and "Triadic Ballet" as well as the renaissance and baroque musical influences in Stravinsky's "Pulcinella." Masks and Machines ontains three contrasting character pieces featuring renaissance brass music, Baroque fortspinnung in virtuosic mallet percussion, lush oboe, clarinet and bassoon solos, and machine-like flute rips.