Program Note:   

I ought to associate the sound of the electric guitar with rock, but I actually enjoy it most in the urban blues of the 40s, Brel ballads from the 50s, Les Paul’s sweet 60’s sound, 80s west coast minimalism, and film noir.

Tangerine Dream’s wall of sound inspired the feel of Pacific Coast Highway, a rondo in which a finger-picking ostinato alternates with a lithe melody and a crunchy groove. Torch Song is a song form movement featuring call and response duets for solo ‘cello and flügelhorn. John Barry’s cool, swinging scores for the Harry Palmer and James Bond movies are touchstones for You Should See the Other Guy, which cross-cuts two musical ideas: a groove, and a flamenco-inspired lick. There’s a swinging cadenza.

The final movement, Maybe Not Today, alternates two romantic themes, each of which is performed twice in its entirety: the first is a ballad in the style of Jacques Brel featuring duets with the English Horn and ‘cello; the second begins on the open G string of the violins and builds into a spacious, unabashedly lyrical love theme inspired by the last scene of Casablanca, a line from which serves as the movement’s title. The opening road trip music returns before a crunchy coda based on the first movement’s groove.