Kitchen Sync
Subtitle: For ultra-flex wind band, orchestra, or small ensemble, and optional prerecorded track.
General Info
Year: 2002 / 2021
Duration: c. 1:10 or longer
Difficulty: III+ (see Ratings for explanation)
Publisher: Activist Music
Cost: Score and Parts (print or digital) - $50.00
Instrumentation (Adaptable Band)
Full score
There is only one required instrument: a food blender
Optional additional instruments:
- Clicked Menu (items that can be struck)
- Textured Menu (items that rip, snap, crinkle or shake)
- Scraped Menu (items that can be scraped with fingernails or utensils)
- Lunch Box Menu (bowls struck with fingers, fingernails, hands, wooden spoon, metal spoon)
- High Register Cooks
- Lower Register Cooks
- Audio track
Extensive examples of possible "instrumentation" are found in the score.
Errata
None discovered thus far.
Program Notes
I’m not an inspired cook, but I do enjoy the meditative groove of cleaning up after a meal — and listening to the pitches and rhythms barked from bowls, dishes, and cookware that form a chorus of multi-registered clanking in the sink. To me, everything in life has the potential to be a musical instrument! For instance, it was this very household task that resulted in my use of resonant metal mixing bowls filled with a little water, to create an otherworldly live sound effect in my 2014 electroacoustic tone poem for wind ensemble Liquid Compass.
The short, percussive blast that is Kitchen Sync lands squarely on the other end of the musical spectrum. When I described to my husband Dan how the musicians will rely solely on lots of related utensils and tools as their instruments, he enthusiastically replied, “You should have them play a kitchen sink, too!”. I loved the idea, but explained that it might be logistically difficult for ensembles to lug a big appliance to the band room or the stage.
Scrolling through Facebook a day later, I stumbled upon a post from my friend Jennifer Jolley, one of the five co-conspirators of Suite Treats, for which Kitchen Sync was composed. Seeking title suggestions for her contribution, she mentioned something about her piece sporting a prerecorded accompaniment track. My brain lit up.
I had designed my little rhythmic offering to work purely acoustically, but suddenly the prospect of an additional version became too tempting to ignore: now I could include everything AND the kitchen sink! Mine and Dan's, in this case, as can be heard in the accompaniment track.
- Program Note by composer
For Lisa Oman, with compliments to the commissioning chefs at Composers & Schools, and appreciation for line cook Tony Spano Jr. and his musical sous chefs of the Culver City High School Concert Band.
- Program Note from score
Performance Notes
Extensive performance notes are found in the score.
Media
State Ratings
None discovered thus far.
Performances
To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project
Works for Winds by This Composer
Adaptable Music
- Count to Ten (Adaptable Band) (2021)
- Kitchen Sync (Adaptable Band) (2021)
- Kitchen Sync. See also: Suite Treats
- Passages (Adaptable Band) (2020)
All Wind Works
- Ascent (2020)
- Beneath. See: Immersion (2010)
- Bioplasm (flute choir) (2004/2012)
- Bioplasm (flute quartet) (2004)
- Breathe (2020)
- Count to Ten (Adaptable Band) (2021)
- Depth. See: Immersion
- Even Deeper (2014)
- Free (2022)
- Homecoming (2008)
- Immersion (2010)
- Kitchen Sync (Adaptable Band) (2021)
- Kitchen Sync. See also: Suite Treats
- Lights Out (2015)
- Liquid Compass (2014)
- Moment (2016)
- Off the Edge (2019)
- Paper Cut (2010)
- Passages (Adaptable Band) (2020)
- Pop Music (2022)
- Rock Music (2016)
- Surface. See: Immersion (2010)
- Suspended (2021)
- Tight Squeeze (2012)
- Train of Thought (sextet) (2015)
- Trains of Thought (concert band) (2015/2017)
Resources
- Alex Shapiro website Accessed 23 July 2021
- Creative Repertoire Initiative
- Perusal score