Concerto for Piccolo and Wind Ensemble (2025)
People often comment that Julia and I must have been raised in a "musical family," whatever that means. Our parents had taken music lessons as had many middle-class children of their generation, and our father always loves to remind us that they constantly played classical music in the house when we were infants in Malaysia. But not just classical music: the Beatles, the Sandpipers, Herb Alpert, and many more. We also had not-so-mythical great-uncle Dudley, our mother's uncle, who had moved to England with his three siblings in the 1940s. There he met Edmundo Ros, a Trinidadian-Venezuelan musician who had formed his own band that played in nightclubs and restaurants in London, and attracted members of high society and royalty. Uncle Dudley dropped out of architecture school and played percussion with "Edmundo Ros and his Rumba Band," and we loved hearing stories about these distant relatives.
Even though we played different instruments growing up in New Zealand, Julia on the flute and I on the violin, we both played the piano. Among duets we learned were the ubiquitous Handel's "Arrival of the Queen of Sheba," and Arthur Benjamin's "Jamaican Rumba,"great party pieces for friends, and school assemblies. While Mum sometimes sent Julia out into the garden when she had piccolo practice to do, I developed a quieter pursuit in composition. This concerto is a long time coming. In three movements: Sonatina, Chaconne, and Rhumba Fantasia, I wish to pay tribute to musical families of the past, present, and into the future.
Instrumentation: solo piccolo, wind ensemble
Duration: ca. 12 minutes