Brass Quintet (2:10) - August 2001

Irish Washerwoman (MIDI)

This was commissioned by Chris Fraker and Kelley Corbett as a closer for their upcoming joint recital in December. There were several conflicting forces I had to deal with in this arrangement: Performers who could possibly be very tired, a song that has the tendency to become dull and repetitive on its own, and the balance between the audience's need for closure and the performers' need for a meaty piece. It helped some to use four-bar phrases instead of eight-bar phrases, and the cookie-cutter melody doesn't hang around for long in its original form. I started writing this with the tuba melody, and just let it spin out from there. There were a few dead ends that I had to backtrack from, but for the most part everything seemed to flow well. The last part I wrote was the four bar introduction, which provides a segue from the Jacobs quintet, which apparently ends with a fat Bb major chord.