Stout-Rivers of Wood (SP)-M/PN

This work was commissioned by the Rivers Music School (Boston, MA) for the 22nd Annual Seminar on Contemporary Music for the Young. It is dedicated to Sarah Tenney and her 13 year old student Eugene Lee. The most important challenge for me was to write music for the marimba that could be well played by a young student, as this is not something I have not done a great deal of. This task did not change the basic way in which I compose, however. I worked out a few bits of material while playing the piano. I then began to explore that material in many different ways, until I decided on the basic nature of the music to be written. Everything was then organically derived from those first few bits of material.

The title of the piece is a combination of rivers from the Rivers Music School and wood, the material of the marimba bars. Perhaps the rivers portion of the title may also refer to the organic and flowing nature of the music, and the way that the same material keeps flowing throughout the entire work. This work was premiered in April of 2000, with Eugene Lee (13 years old) as soloist

-Gordon Stout

Number of Players: 2
Difficulty: Grade 3
Instrumentation:
Player I: Marimba
Player II: Piano

GORDON STOUT (b.1952) is currently Professor of Percussion at the School of Music, Ithaca College, Ithaca, N.Y. A composer as well as percussionist who specializes on marimba, he has studied composition with Joseph Schwantner, Samuel Adler and Warren Benson, and percussion with James Salmon and John Beck.As a composer-recitalist he has premiered a number of his original compositions and works by other contemporary composers. Many of his compositions for marimba are published, and have already become standard repertoire for marimbists world-wide. His recordings are devoted not only to his own music, but also that of the general standard repertoire by important American composers.