Hurricane Charm
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(two pianos and two percussionists), 20 min., 2009. Commissioned by Shirley Yoo. Premiered by Shirley Yoo and Stephen Buck, pianos with Josh Quillen and Adam Sliwinski, percussion, Philadelphia, PA.
Shirley Yoo and Stephen Buck, pianos; Victor Cassese and Terry Sweeney, percussion, 2009
The title Hurricane Charm comes from a road tattoo commissioned by the city of New Smyrna, Florida from the artist Steed Taylor. The area had been struck by powerful hurricanes the previous year and this work was placed in the parking lot outside city hall, designed to provide protection against the coming year’s storms. Those of us assisting Steed painted the names that would be assigned to these storms into the tattoo. The name I was assigned was Katrina and I remember concentrating vigorously thinking about protecting the east coast of Florida from the storm that would carry this name. Obviously, Katrina did spare the town we were protecting, but devastated huge areas of the gulf coast.
This piece was commissioned by Shirley Yoo in order to perform with Stephen Buck and members of So Percussion.