MOROCCAN FLOW

First performance February 20, 2008, NYC, Austrian Cultural Forum.
Alex Waterman-cello
Composed 2006 Morocco and 2008 NYC.

 program notes

This is the fourth piece, and the last of the solo works, from my ‘FLOW cycle’ of five pieces for string trio. Islamic pattern drawings and music encountered during a recent trip to Morocco both presented an intriguing concept of infinity.  In the drawings, simple tools are used to expand upon circles, forming hexagrams and other geometrically perfect shapes.  The shapes themselves are not infinite, but their layered intersection and elaborate extension imply a plane stretching well beyond the borders of the wall or door they decorate.  This "implied infinity" is a concept that works very well in musical terms, as a step beyond more literal translations of infinity as simple repetition of motives or chords.

Moroccan Flow is a study in translating the 'flow' of these endless lines that pass from one hexagram to the next into a musical line.  In addition to integrating a Moroccan dance-like motive of irregular time, it explores a similarity noted in how a six-sided shape fills in a circle, which musically relates to the circular organization of the twelve notes we have in equal-temperament: the circle of fifths. This piece was written for Alex Waterman, to whom it is dedicated.