Faye-Ellen Silverman

Manhattan Fixation

Year: 2008

Duration (in minutes): 11 1/2'39;

Difficulty: High (professional)

Category: small chamber ensembles - 2 to 4 players, solo voice(s) with chamber ensemble, solo voice(s) with solo instruments

Instruments: any female voice, any high voice, any medium voice, any string, any voice, cello, mezzo soprano, soprano

Publisher: Subito Music Corporation

Description: When Gilda Lyons, whom I met at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA), commissioned this work for Seraphim, she mentioned that the group (soprano, mezzo-soprano, and cello) would like a work without words. While at first this seemed difficult, this ended up having a freeing effect on my imagination. The second impetus came from a book I was reading on the bus from the VCCA. The book was Allen Shawn’s “Arnold Schoenberg’s Journey.” In talking about Schoenberg’s monodrama “Erwartung”, he wrote, “ Throughout the score the singer returns obsessively to that first note in the oboe (C-sharp), as if to a sore tooth.” In addition, I was working on finishing a CD entitled “Manhattan Stories”. In creating the liner notes, I realized how much my life was tied to Manhattan. Hence “Manhattan Fixation” was born – a work in five short movements, all based on the pitch C-sharp.