Crawford-Winter Mix-M

Winter Mix by Stephen Crawford is a three-movement suite of character pieces for 4.3 octave marimba. Growing up on the plains of North Dakota, much of his youth was spent dealing with wind, snow, and ice. "Wind" is based around the constant "G" pedal tone. The movement of the wind can be heard in the middle section with the chromatic passage based on a whole-tone scale. "Snow" depicts the beauty of a gently falling snow. The chorale's harmonies are "Debussy-esque" and inspired by his piano prelude, "Footsteps in the Snow." "Ice" is a brittle, highly chromatic piece that captures the essence and unpredictability of ice. The performer literally slides up and down the keyboard on E-flat chromatic scale runs.