Heir to the Flesh
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General Info
Year: 2021
Duration: c. 7:35
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Unknown
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown
Instrumentation
(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
In creating this work, the composer thought about how resilient musicians have been through the Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, and how musicians are willing to keep trying and find any alternative to express themselves and create art, even online.
The title of this work, Heir to the Flesh, comes from a famous "To be or not to be" speech from Hamlet, in which the Prince of Denmark contemplates death:
To die,—to sleep,—
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to...
In a larger sense, the digital realm could be considered the heir to the flesh, the next stage, the new medium for human expression or emotion.
Heir to the Flesh is designed for virtual performance, mixing live instruments with electronics. The composer gave the wind performers a few sketches to perform, and then those sketches become the base material for the electronics, creating a balance between live and electronic sounds.
- Program Note adapted from composer comments
Is the choreography essential to performance?
This work was a commission in memory of Scott G. Smedinghoff A'14 for the Dartmouth College Wind Ensemble by the Hopkins Center for the Arts. It was funded by Bruce J. Berger, M.D.'66, P'94, and Barbara S. Berger P'94.
Media
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State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
- Dartmouth College (Hanover, N.H.) Wind Ensemble (Brian Messier, conductor; Dartmouth Dance Ensemble) - 25 May 2021 (Virtual) *Premiere Performance*
Works for Winds by This Composer
- Heir to the Flesh (2021)
Resources
- Henry Vega website Accessed 27 May 2021