Fractals
Five imaginative fantasies inspired by whimsical fractals
Music: Elizabeth Alexander
Fractals are intricate pictures which bear an uncanny resemblance to many images found in nature — coastlines, clouds, cells, lightning bolts, clusters of stars. But for all their complexity, fractals are generated using simple and concise recipes, often simple computer programs no more than 4-5 lines long. Like visual fractals, these five whimsical miniatures are based on very simple ideas which grow in complexity as the ideas are layered and spun out.
Each movement is based on a different fractal created by Benoit Mandelbrot, from the delicate “Cirri” and spunky “Tremas and Squigs,” to the quirky “Twindragon,” described by American Record Guide as a “toetapping, finger-snapping, brainier and more complex interpretation of Cool from Bernstein’s West Side Story…”
Movements:
1. Cirri
2. Devil’s Staircase
3. Twindragon
4. River Tree
5. Tremas and Squigs
“[My accompanist and I] adore this work. The rhythmic and textural intricacies combine in a refreshing character for bassoon and piano. We discover new soundscapes with every playing and are drawn in anew. Thank you for such a fresh addition to the bassoon repertoire!” Christin Schillinger, Assistant Professor of Bassoon, Miami University (Oxford, OH)
Details and Ordering Information
Performers
Premiere: Cynthia Cameron Fix, bassoon and Dale Fix, piano (Madison, WI)
Christin Schillinger, bassoon and Jed Moss, piano
Advanced Double Reed Institute (Dallas, TX)
Celebration of Women in Music (Saint Louis, MO)
International Double Reed Society Conference (Norman, OK)
International Double Reed Society Conference (Los Angeles, CA)
Vianden International Chamber Music Festival (Vianden, LUXEMBOURG)
Cynthia Cameron Fix, bassoon and Dale Fix, piano (Charleston, IL)
Kathryn Anderson, bassoon and Catherine Fischer, piano (Minneapolis, MN)
Kimberly Buchar Kelley, bassoon. University of Illinois Doctoral Recital (Urbana, IL)
Lee Goodhew, bassoon and Elizabeth Alexander, piano (Ithaca, NY)
Renee Dee, bassoon and Debora Stewart, piano (Wooster, OH)
Stacy Motquin, bassoon and Elizabeth Alexander, piano (Ithaca, NY)
Torsten Knabe, bassoon and Christina Wright-Ivanova, piano (Austin, TX)
