By:

• Juliet Palmer

Duration:

20' 00"

Instrumentation:

Ensemble 1: piano solo, bassoon, trumpet, bass, percussion; Ensemble 2: piccolo/flute solo, oboe, bass clarinet, trombone, cello, percussion

Programme Note

drift, drop grew out of the folksong Down by Sally’s Garden as sung by Leo Spenser in Lakefield, Ontario in 1957. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Lakefield, and I certainly wasn’t there in 1957, but I have a small distintegrating volume of Canadian folksongs on the top of my piano. A lot of rambling and roving takes place in this song, and I kept finding myself singing it as I rode my bike through Toronto’s laneways. This song, which long ago drifted over from Ireland, guided me through the labyrinth of composing – Drift, to float along, to deviate; something driven. Drop, to fall, to collapse; a precipitous shift.

Juliet Palmer

Commissioned:

Commissioned and premiered by New Music Concerts, with soloists Robert Aitken (flutes) and James Avery (piano), Glen Gould Studio, Toronto, with funding by the Arts Council of Ontario

Performance History

	26 Feb 2006	Performed by the New Music Concerts with soloists Robert Aitken (flute) and James Avery (piano) at the Glen Gould Studio in Toronto, Canada