Like many of you, I suppose, I have mixed feelings about the Christmas holiday season. Though I accept it as a time for sharing joy, giving to others and pious reflections, I cannot stand its commercial crassness and mass culture banalities. I feel that the music that we hear most often lacks imagination, and is contrived to make us feel nostalgic for others' past, which we ourselves did not experience. It is difficult for most people today to really grasp the meaning of carols and wassailing, not having lived in the context of Christian European life centuries ago. Furthermore, it is just as hard for many of our society's outcast, homeless, poor and mentally ill to glean any significance from our songs about Santa, toys and cozy romantic encounters by a fireplace, which are alien to their life experiences. Thinking about these dichotomies intensifies my mixed feelings during the Christmas holiday season, so that they become a delicate balance of depression and desire to create something better. It has been the impetus for my HOLIDAY IMPRESSIONS Collection, music designed for you and me to experience the sounds of the season from a new perspective.
In the tradition of my African American heritage, I have appropriated the melodies of Christmas carols and other seasonal tunes in the public domain, and, with my accumulated education, tried to create pieces that embody innovative rhythms, strong contrapuntal lines, sophisticated harmonization and rich timbre. For one of my first experiments in 1982, I used "Deck The Halls" and "Good King Wenceslas" as the basis for a piece in four voices which I named "Christmas Quartet 1982". At that time, I was employed at The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) with several very musically talented co-workers, who got together annually on the workday before Christmas to sing and play some holiday tunes for fellow employees and their visiting families. They graciously agreed to read my piece, and we played it with favorable results. Ever since then, I have enjoyed composing, arranging and performing new works of this kind, as well as creating videos and notated publications of them which comprise my HOLIDAY IMPRESSIONS Collection. I happily invite you to visit http://www.fairfaxmusic.org/the-holiday-impressions-collection.html to download and play these works with the expectation that they will positively change your feelings about the Christmas holiday season!
Wishing you a Happy Christmas & New Year,
Richard
In the tradition of my African American heritage, I have appropriated the melodies of Christmas carols and other seasonal tunes in the public domain, and, with my accumulated education, tried to create pieces that embody innovative rhythms, strong contrapuntal lines, sophisticated harmonization and rich timbre. For one of my first experiments in 1982, I used "Deck The Halls" and "Good King Wenceslas" as the basis for a piece in four voices which I named "Christmas Quartet 1982". At that time, I was employed at The American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) with several very musically talented co-workers, who got together annually on the workday before Christmas to sing and play some holiday tunes for fellow employees and their visiting families. They graciously agreed to read my piece, and we played it with favorable results. Ever since then, I have enjoyed composing, arranging and performing new works of this kind, as well as creating videos and notated publications of them which comprise my HOLIDAY IMPRESSIONS Collection. I happily invite you to visit http://www.fairfaxmusic.org/the-holiday-impressions-collection.html to download and play these works with the expectation that they will positively change your feelings about the Christmas holiday season!
Wishing you a Happy Christmas & New Year,
Richard
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