Program notes

Silk for two sopranos, opus 47 (1993)

Silk is a short work for two sopranos, vibraphone, bass clarinet and double bass composed for the Song Company in 1993.  They gave the work its first performance at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney as part of an Easter concert. The work is a setting of a short, anonymous Chinese poem that is both refined and erotic in its character. Although a short work, the harmonic and melodic impulse of the work has been strongly influential in other of my instrumental works including Silk Canons and Silken Weave.  The harmonic material of the work derives from an earlier a capella piece for the Song Company, Ekstasis. Like Ekstasis, Silk interweaves the two soprano voices in free and exultant counterpoint.

© Andrew Schultz, 1993.