Musical Landscapes and Reminiscence: New Works for Oboe Inspired by Place

Musical Landscapes and Reminiscence: New Works for Oboe Inspired by Place

Featuring two newly commissioned works for oboe, this performance celebrates the connections between music, memory, and geography. These pieces emerged from my recent commissioning and recording project exploring places that have fundamentally shaped my life and musical journey, with each work reflecting a location of shared personal significance between myself and its composer. Expanding the oboe repertoire while supporting living composers, “Musical Landscapes and Reminiscence” uses music as a tool to evoke memories of place and positively influence collective memory. This performance is an invitation to experience how geography and personal history can be translated into sound, and how new music can deepen our connection to the landscapes that shape us.

Timothy Russell’s Dimictic for oboe and electronic fixed media is based around the annual cycles of Madison’s Lake Mendota and Lake Monona. This “club banger for oboe” immerses listeners in the sonic landscape of Wisconsin’s lakes as they transform from summer to winter and reflects on the rhythms of seasonal change, both human and molecular.

John William Griffith II’s from the fire tower for oboe, viola, and piano is inspired by the autumnal views from the fire towers throughout Brown County, Indiana. While exploring the rolling landscape, palette of fall colors, and varied details of texture, the piece also explores thoughts of reflection and nostalgia that arise when taking in the expansive view.

Performers