The piece starts with a box.
As composer and vibraphonist Stefon Harris was sitting at his piano, trying to compose, he became frustrated. He looked up and spotted his log drum — a small box with several slits notched along the top. When hit, the slits elicit a variety of pitches. The sound of that log drum became an inspiration.
“I’m looking at this box, and I’m trying to discover what this box is made of,” Harris said. “It’s like what holds the music in this box together. And I discovered that all music has something that holds it together. There is usually some pitch or some melody in the center that makes a chord progression or a piece of music feel united. So this piece of music is about that. It’s about pouring red dye on the DNA of a piece of music, of a melody. It explores that type of concept.”
The piece of music he described is Anatomy of a Box: A Sonic Painting in Wood, Metal, and Wind. Harris, with Imani Winds — a quintet from New York City — will perform the world première at 7:30 p.m. Friday in City High’s Opstad Auditorium, 1900 Morningside Drive. Tickets are $10 to $28.
Imani Winds consists of flutist Valerie Coleman, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, clarinetist Mariam Adam, bassoonist Monica Ellis, and French horn player Jeff Scott.
The group, which formed in 1997, was Coleman’s idea. She wanted to create a chamber-music wind quintet with musicians from ethnic minorities. Since then, the group has performed around the world with two resident composers, Coleman and Scott, while collaborating and working on various projects that expand the idea of what such a quintet can play.
Harris’ new piece, co-commissioned by Hancher, is part of Imani Winds’ Legacy Commissioning project, which the group established to celebrate its 10-year anniversary. The project aims to commission and perform 10 new works by 10 composers from various backgrounds. Thus far, the composers have been Alvan Singleton, Roberto Sierra, and Jason Moran.
“It was an opportunity to just go on a journey with these musicians,” Ellis said. “I think some of them would not have gravitated toward writing for these wind instruments, but once we approached them, it was something that they were really excited about.
“It’s very interesting when you come up with a project like this. You never really know how it is going to work. It’s just been fantastic. I think it’s a classic case of ‘If you build it, they will come.’ All you have to do is ask and put the project out there.”
Harris’ piece is the fourth première for the quintet. Ellis said the musicians were extremely excited about the début and described Harris’ creation as a work filled with worldly sounds that take the audience on many journeys.
He combined the wind instruments and his own instruments, the vibraphone and marimba, with other tracks of music to create a multimedia piece. He also introduced improvisation to the classical quintet, a new concept for the group and one that the members discussed a couple of years ago when first collaborating with Harris.
“In terms of improvisation, what an unbelievable opportunity I have to take a teaching concept that I have called melodic progression and have musicians of the caliber of Imani Winds put it into practice,” Harris said. “It is an unbelievable opportunity for me. They are so incredible. It’s a real testament to whether my system will work or not. It’s working beautifully so far. It’s really just giving them some core tools.”
The quintet members were a bit intimidated at first by the idea of improvisation, he said, but after time and what he described as “letting it build,” they understood the concept. Not only is improvisation concerned with construction, he said, the piece itself embraces that key concept — breaking the music down and rebuilding. With improvisation, he said, every performance should be fresh and exciting.
And so — before composing, before rehearsing, before improvising — the piece started with a box, an instrument that holds music together. And it ends with a composition held together by its performers.