Piccolo Concerto

Recently, I have become obsessed with shapes, and how their perception can influence anything from one’s own perspective to that of an entire society. With this Piccolo Concerto, I wanted to explore how something of symmetry can be perceived as ‘normal’ or ‘regular’, and something lobsided, as ‘irregular’ or even ‘strange’ and ‘weird’. Or vice versa, depending on which side of the Earth you’re on.

This Piccolo Concerto aims to outline, expose, subvert, blend and extend our general understanding on what is considered ‘Western’ and ‘Non-western’ elements of music. The work is set in a way that every ‘bar’ (a unit of time that possesses a number of musical beats) has the same number of beats; a feature that exists in the vast majority of compositions (classical and non-classical alike). This ‘normal’ setting, however, has a twist: the size of these beats is uneven. Unlike a Waltz or Cha cha cha, which can be counted equally, the dance of this Concerto is lobsided, with its ‘four’s and ‘five’s being slightly shorter (and thus feeling quicker) than its ‘one’s, ‘two’s and ‘three’s. This can be seen as unusual to some, but also very normal to others, such as those potentially from sub-Saharan African backgrounds.

This gives a platform on which the Piccolo can explore all its capacities; not only as a Western Flute extension, but an instrument in its own right, with timbres borrowed from Gaelic tin whistles to African pennywhistles, and everything in between.

Piccolo Concerto (Italian pun intended) is short, fast and over within a flash. However, this is not a ‘concertino’. Due to the demanding music material present not only in the solo part but in the orchestral accompaniment, this is a ‘Piccolo concerto.’ Italian pun intended.