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Scoring
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3 Flutes (3rd Flute doubles on Piccolo), 2 Oboes (2nd Oboe doubles on English Horn in F), 2 Clarinets in B-flat (2nd Clarinet in B-flat doubles on Bass Clarinet in B-flat), 2 Bassoons (2nd Bassoon doubles on Contra-Bassoon), 4 Horns in F, 3 Trumpets in C, 2 Trombones, Bass Trombone, Tuba, 4 Percussion, Timpani, Harp, Narrator, Strings
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Score Sample
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Requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
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Sound File
Click the arrow on the right side of the player to hear the sound file.
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Macromedia Flash Player Required
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Commissioned by
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The Philadelphia Orchestra Association, in consortium with the Musical Arts Association (The Cleveland Orchestra), and the St. Louis Symphony Society, and was made possible by a grant from the Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest Commissioning Program, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.
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Program Notes
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CityMusic is specifically directed at young people who are growing up in an urban environment. The piece begins with the narrator invoking various landscapes (the country, the desert, the mountains), each accompanied by lush orchestral textures. When "The Big City" arrives, however, the orchestra delivers a cacophony of city noises. The narrator, appalled that the Big City is getting short shrift, tosses the score aside and asks the conductor and orchestra to create music out of the cacophony, finding a melody in this noise, a rhythm in that one, and so on.
In this case the work has a pedagogical function, in that it intends to show the listener that music is
really not much more than organized noise, and therefore we have music of a kind
going on around us all the time, if we would only listen for it. Clothed in the
veneer of a work about the big city, CityMusic is intended to be
entertaining on its surface, as well as a challenging on other levels. It has been my great pleasure to see that adults as well as children are entertained by the piece, if for entirely different reasons.
CityMusic has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, and the Indianapolis Symphony.
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Review
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Cleveland Plain Dealer, 4/3/1997:
Jeffery Cotton's "CityMusic", in its Cleveland premiere, begins as an evocation of American landscapes - sounding like Richard Strauss meets John Williams - and suddenly becomes a tableau of big-city tumult. The piece has a winning twist: A narrator takes apart the "noises", hones them along melodic, harmonic and rhythmic lines and transforms them into an affectionate and humorous urban tone painting.
Cotton served as the deft narrator, showing exasperation when the city sounds turned dissonant and schmoozing amiably with [conductor Alan] Gilbert and the audience. The orchestra, which commissioned the piece with the Philadelphia Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony, lavished sonic riches on Cotton's lush cinematic writing. The composer must have been in symphonic heaven.
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For Rental
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This work and all of Jeffery Cotton's works are available through Crowded Air Music. Please send all inquiries to .
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Perusal score available on request, or click here to download a sample score as an Adobe Acrobat file. Performance materials available for rental.