===========================

Elegy and Honk

for English horn
and electro-acoustic music

(2001)
(duration ca. 10 min.)

Mark W. Phillips
published and distributed by Coolville Music (www.coolvillemusic.com)
===========================
1999 Individual Artist Fellowship
Recipient

composed for Donna Conaty

Elegy and Honk

by Mark Phillips
=========================================

Performance Notes:

All grace notes occur before the beat.

Cautionary accidentals are generously used throughout. In the event of a question, assume that accidentals carry
throughout the measure, but not across bar lines or octaves.
=========================================

progam notes

Sometimes a creative artist just happens upon a great title and then must find a way to create a work that justifies the
title. Elegy and Honk, for English horn and electro-acoustic music is a case in point. Not surprisingly, it is a work in two
highly contrasting movements. The entire accompaniment to the Elegy is derived from a few English horn sounds short
notes in various registers, some airy key clicks, and a whoosh of air rushing through the instrument without the reed in
place. The dense clouds of sound in the background actually come from a single very short English horn blip subjected to
a process called granular synthesis, through which the original audio is exploded into tiny fragments. Each fragment is then
stretched nearly to the breaking point and recombined into several layers of overlapping texture. There is a long historical
tradition of lyrical and serene elegies, but throughout the early stages of my composition process, a brooding, edgy,
ominous undercurrent kept insisting so persistently it belonged in this elegy that I finally gave in to it. While the work was
premiered in August of 2001, the second performance of the Elegy took place a few weeks later on September 13 at an
outdoor ceremony held in response to the events of September 11. For both the performer and myself, as well as many in
the audience, the movement was permanently redefined. The intensity and dark mood of the work seem absolutely right
for an elegy.
A long transition, serving as an introduction to the second movement, gradually and slyly alters the mood of the work
completely. This raucous movement expands on the palette of English horn source material to include a menagerie of
geese and duck sounds, joined by an old-fashioned bicycle horn Honk, indeed!
=========================================

about the composer:

Mark Phillips, a professor and Presidential Research Scholar at Ohio University, won the 1988 Barlow International
Competition. His music has received hundreds of performances throughout the US, and in Europe, South America, Japan,
and China, including over 40 orchestra performances by groups such as the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland
Orchestra, the Kansas City Symphony, the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Japan), the Ensemble Eclipse (China), the Baltic
Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bahia Blanca (Argentina), and the Icelandic Orchestra. His music
has been recorded by Richard Stoltzman and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lark Quartet, and several solo artists.

English Horn (in F)

Elegy
by Mark Phillips

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