Narrator and orchestra

Instrumentation 2(2nd dbl. picc.)/2/2/2; 4/2/3/1; timp + 2 perc; spoken voice; orchestral strings
Percussion requirements (1) crotales, chimes, lg. tamtam, bass dr, triangle; (2) glock, snare dr, susp. cymbal, crash cymbals, whip

Timing 4’30”

Composed 2005

Commissioned by the Kamloops Symphony with funding from the British Columbia Arts Council and the CURA program of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada

Poems by Robert Kroetsch

World Premiere May 7, 2005, Sagebrush Theatre, Kamloops, British Columbia. Henry Hubert, narrator; Kamloops Symphony Orchestra; Bruce Dunn, conductor

Performances by Kamloops Symphony, Vancouver Symphony

Programme Notes

In Map of the City/Map of the World, images of Kamloops, a small city in the interior of British Columbia, become the inspiration for poet Robert Kroetsch’s exploration of mapping. The sights, sounds, forms, patterns, and repetitions in the daily life of Kamloops come together to create a map of the city. Though each city’s map is unique, small cities share many of the same characteristics and qualities, and so each map is also a variation of the daily lives of other small cities around the world. In this short work for spoken voice and orchestra, a single melodic and harmonic idea, heard in the first refrain, is used as the basis for a set of variations and refrains that merge the energy and colours of the orchestra with the spoken word to vividly amplify the images in Kroetsch’s poetry ‹ the sound of the coyotes, the noise of the traffic, the cheers from the arena, the flash of headlights cutting through the night, and the twinkling of stars in the sky.

PDF perusal score

Map of the City perusal

Audio excerpt

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