Compositions & Orchestrations by Christopher Eastburn
All original works except where noted
Ballet Score "Newport
Stories"
An
emotional exploration of
Newport's history through dance, poetry, music and song. Choreography
by
Island Moving Co. Artistic Director Miki Ohlson & Michael Bolger. Text by journalist John Pantalone. Music composed by Christopher Eastburn. Score combines choral music (settings of
Newport Poems), instrumental music and ambient sound.
Dance performed by Island Moving Co. music
performed by members
of Boston’s Family Folk Chorale.
Commissioned by Nicole Halbreiner
with support from the Argosy Foundation: Contemporary Music Fund
I Quaker Meeting
II Time Unlike the Tide (child)
III The Rambler
IV A Voyage to Africa *
V Time Unlike the Tide (teen)
VI Nikkety Tree of Time
VII Time Unlike the Tide (adult)
VIII Cartographer's Villanelle
IX Rainbow vs. Endeavor
X They Tell of Islands/On the Cliffs
XI White Glove
XII Time Unlike the Tide (senior & ALL)
XIII Parking Meters
XIV Castle Hill
*(origianlly appears in Moses Brown and the Voyage of the Slave
Ship Sally)
It was dreamy and
delicious, spiritual and sensuous and I felt I was in heaven for
an hour
and then it was over all too quickly. In that hour I saw and heard many
parts
of Newport: the Quakers, men lost at sea, the slave trade, over-the-top
mansion
life, America's Cup and tourists. Sound effects of waves
washing and breaking on
the shore juxtaposed
with the sound of
quarters dropping and registering in parking meters. What especially
impressed
me was the smooth integration of the dance and the music which
required exceedingly complex staging and stops and starts.
And interspersed through it all was the theme of Time: "Time, unlike the
tide, is of a single mind, coursing outward into the depths of eternal
space."
Mary Haskell, Lexington,
MA
Score for "Tom's Wealth"
A Dance for the Masses,
an evening length piece for 35 performers: five Caitlin Corbett Dance
Company dancers and 30 non-dancers (men, women and children) based on
text taken from Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer*. Corbett
and fellow artists Chris Eastburn, music; Akos Szilvasi,
photography; and Ann Steuernagel, production design, use this text as
the score with which to structure the choreography, music and set
design. The music score is based upon traditional folk melodies
using compositional techniques including inversion, time stretching,
meter shifting, reharmonizing etc.
*“And when the
middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor
poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in
wealth. He had&helip; twelve marbles, part of a jews-harp, a piece
of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool cannon, a key that
wouldn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a
decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, six fire-crackers, a
kitten with only one eye, a brass doorknob, a dog collar-but no dog,
the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated
old window sash."
I Shoo
II Sue
III Twinkle
IV Rock
V Row
VI Rhody
VII Rhody II
VIII Hush
IX Rock II
X Clem
XI Rhody III
XII Shoo II
XIII Row II
XIV Twinle II
XV Sunshine
XVI Sue II
"Chris Eastburn's
delicious twisting of Americana favorites."
Boston Pheonix on the music for Tom's Wealth
Theatre Score
"Moses Brown and the Voyage of the Slave Ship Sally"
For the past 7 years theatre director Barry
Marshall has been bringing together students from the prep school Moses
Brown
and the public, inner-city Hope high school to explore history and work
on a
performance project about the Brown Bros. Slave voyage on the ship “the
Sally”
and the later transformation of Moses into an abolitionist. In
2008
the Moses Brown School, with a grant from the Rhode Island Council
for
the Arts, commissioned composer
Christopher Eastburn to write string orchestra and chorus music for the
project.
I A Voyage to Africa
II Dance on "Grant Safe Sailing"
III Pero
IV Toward the Middle Passage
V Middle Passage Instrumental
VI Quaker Meeting *
*(originally appears in Newport Stories)
Jazzy Old
St. Nick
a hip, swing
arrangement of a Christmas favorite
for Treble Chorus and Orchestra
published by Hal Leonard Corporation
available Christmas 2009
Call Across the Generations
SSAA
Treble Choir
Commissioned by PALS
Children’s Chorus for Brookine’s 300th Anniversary
Funded by the Brookline
tercentennial fund
libretto by Margo Lockwood, music by Christopher
Eastburn
"Brookline has a very long and rich history.
There are many historical figures who would
be apt subject matter for a piece commemorating the town’s 300th
anniversary including JFK, Olmstead, Amy Lowell, Larz Anderson,
Jonas Salk, etc. However, as I sat in the
Brookline room
at the library on a snowy February evening looking through old
books and
photographs I was most palpably struck by a feeling for the
passage of
time within a place. In the books and photographs
were generations
of people who shaped the town. I thought about the
current
generations and especially children, as embodied in the PALS singers,
as the
inheritors and torch bearers of that history. I became
interested in creating a piece in
which they could sing in first person--not as actors but as
themselves--and
with their voices call back to their ancestry and heritage. They
sing in celebration and remembrance and
hopefully we are reminded of the beauty and ephemeral nature of
all our lives
and our shared mortality."
"Several of the books in the Brookline
room contained the work of poet
Margo Lockwood. I had the good fortune
of being able to work with Margo on “Call Across the
Generations”. She not only shared a great deal of feeling
for the town, having been a life long resident, but also wrote several
new
poems which make up the libretto for the piece."
from program notes about Call Across the
Generations at Jordan Hall, Boston premiere
I We Call Across
the Generations
II From our Seven Hills
III June when the Sun Knifes
IV Instrumental
V The Builders of Our Houses
VI I Am Wearing Down the Threshold of Greif
VII From our Seven Hills
Ballet Score for "Consent to
Gravity"
Consent to Gravity's string quartet and vocal quartet score by
Christopher Eastburn was commissioned by Newport's Island Moving Co.
for the landmark multimedia celebration of the artist Frederick
Sommer's creative legacy. Created in 2005 for the 100th
anniversary of Sommer's birth, the multimedia performance combines
Sommer's spoken text and projected images with original dance and
music. It has been performed at the Getty Museum, Los
Angeles; MassArt, Boston; Rhode Island School of Design, and the
Providence Performing Arts Center in Providence Rhode Island; and
Wheaton College, Massachusetts. It has additionally been
performed in chamber music contexts at the Port Milford Chamber music
festival in Ontario, Canada and the Pace/MacGill Gallery in New York
City at the invitiation of the Frederick Sommer Foundation and by a 40
voice chorus and soloists under the direction of Vivian Montgomery in
the Boston area.
I The Art of Vermeer
II The Art of Vermeer
Interlude
III Skip Reading from
Genesis
IV Ideas and Thoughts
Collide
V Ideas and Thoughts
Collide Instrumental
VI Ideas and Art are
the Possibility
VII Ideas and Art are
the Possibility Instrumental
"Chris
Eastburn's score for the Providence String Quartet was one of the most
successful new musical works for dance I've heard in ages."
--Debra
Cash, dance critic for
National Public Radio's Here and Now
I Go
Song with SATB chorus
poem: Bill Meikle, music: Chris Eastburn
text by Bill Meikle winner of Mississippi Valley Poetry contest.
Set to music for Bill's 70th birthday, On April 16, 2005.
Recorded by the Family Folk Chorale on
Songs for Living On
Castles in the Air
SSAA
Treble Choir or SATB Choir
Co-written
with Eliza Moore
Commissioned by PALS
Children’s Chorus, Brookline MA
Premiered by PALS at
Harvard’s Sanders Theater, Cambridge, MA for the American Choral
Directors Association Eastern Division Conference 2004
For the Beauty of the Earth
SSA
Treble Choir
Funded by Church of the
Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, MA)
The
words from the original hymn are re-set to a high energy bluegrass tune.
He ‘Rose
SATB
or SAT (Treble choir and tenor section)
Funded by Church of the
Redeemer, Chestnut Hill, MA
A
Resurrection song for intergenerational voices: the original
words from the hymn were reset to bluesy tune that trades back and
forth within the verses between a treble (child or children) voice and
a tenor (adult male), then gives way to an energetic duet for the
refrain.
I’m Going to Spangola
Treble
choir and chamber orchestra or 7-piece ensemble or piano
Invited to be the U.S.
representative song to Lo Zecchino d’ Oro
Winner of KidSing 2000,
international children’s song competition
Going
to Spangola Musical
(Musical)
SA
and chamber orchestra or piano
I. Going to Spangola
II
If
Only
III
Spangolese
Nationola Anthemleva
IV
The
Plan
V
What
Happened
VI
Sure
of You
VII
The
Great Guerbling Empire
VIII
The
Spy-Crowlevas
IX
Wonderful
Original
musical for Chamber Orchestra and Children’s Singing Cast
Lyrics
and book by Liz Duffy Adams and Kate Snow
Premiered at PALS on
Stage, Brookline MA
As You Like It
Soprano,
2 Tenors, Two Baritones, 2 Children, Ensemble Adult Cast,
Lute, Viola
da Gamba, & Recorder
I Under the Greenwood Tree
II
Blow,
Blow
III
What
Shall He Have
IV
It
Was a Lover and his Lass
V
Then
is there Mirth
VI
Wedding
is Great Juno’s Crown
Score
for Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Commissioned by the MIT
Shakespeare Ensemble
"This is a Fugue in C Major"
a self identifying vocal fugue
SATB
Wide
Intergenerational
chorus, clarinet, cello, upright piano, classical guitar, body
percussion, & tape
I Calls
II Backwards
March
III Fugue
IV Water
is Wide (new tune)
A
performance project for intergenerational chorus and professional dance
company.
Pieces
are based upon the traditional folk tune “The Water is Wide”, playing
with the material using various compositional techniques. These
were originally performed by an intergenerational group of singers and
instrumentalists, intermingled with other traditional songs and new
dance pieces to form the whole of Wide.
Commissioned by the Tufts
University Dance Department, choreographer Daniel McCusker
Indian Summer
Clarinet
and tape
Commissioned by
choreographer Daniel McCusker
Tea
Flute,
computer tape, temple percussion
A
performance project based on the Japanese Tea Ceremony
Commissioned by the
Andover-Newton Theological School
James and the Giant Peach
Violin,
cello, trombone, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion
Overture
and various incidental
Commissioned by the
Children’s Theatre of Maine
See
also James and Giant Peach songs (Vocal)
Elana & Tianli
4
hands piano
Eddy Estlin for 4 Hands
4
hands piano
Songs
(6/97-12-98)
The Dharma Army
Roberta
Selfish
Sarcastic
Sugarplum
Chest
Hair
Momma
Inside/Out
Right
Place
Dogs
Louisa
Bagatelitos
Rancheros
Songs
for Scoundrels
A
cycle of songs for 3 vocalists, clarinet, Alto Saxophone, 2 Trumpets,
Trombone, Drum Kit, Piano, Electric Bass, String Quartet
I A Perception of Worth
II Breakfast Clothes
III Minotaurs
Missionaries
IV Campfire Song
V Perfect Congress
VI Our Maturing Diaries
VII Call of the Wild
VIII A Farmyard Fray
If My Father
Tenor
and bass clarinet
Commissioned by
choreographer Brian Crabtree
15
miniatures for Tenor and Bass Clarinet
A Family of Songs
Vocal
quartet, piano, bass, drum kit
A
cycle of songs written from American poems on familiar relationships
I The People
II Abel’s Bride
III Dilemma
IV The Ache of Marriage
VDo it Y’rself
VI Son
VII Paradox
VIII Men Loved Wholly
Beyond Wisdom
Hornfare
6
French Horns
Written for James Decker
and the Horn Ensemble at the Bowdoin Summer Music Festival 1993
Ambition in the Rumble Seat
String
quartet
James
and the Giant Peach
Children’s
singing cast
and violin, cello, trombone, flute, clarinet, piano, percussion
I Spiker was Thin as a
Wire
II Sponge was
Terrifically Fat
III I’ve Eaten Fresh
Mudburgers
IV We May See a Creature
V I Look and Smell, I
do Declare
Score
for musical
Commissioned
by the Children’s Theatre of Maine
3 Songs on Desire
Tenor
and lute
Shadows
Desire
Jove
Niels
Solo
Double Bass
Premiered by Robert Black
at the Sonoklect New Music Festival 1991
ORCHESTRA
Jazzy
Old St. Nick
a hip, swing arrangement of a Christmas favorite
for Treble Chorus and Orchestra
published by Hal Leonard Corporation
available Christmas 2009
Stars,
Songs, Faces
Choral Work by Nick
Page, Orchestration by Chris Eastburn
performed twice at Carnegie
Hall during the 2007-2008 season
I’m Going to Spangola
Orchestra
and treble choir
Invited to be the U.S.
representative song to Italy’s Lo Zecchino d’ Oro
Winner of KidSing 2000,
international children’s song competition
Sixteen
Going on Seventeen
So
Long Farewell
Orchestra
and vocal
Arrangements
of Rodgers and Hammerstein
Commissioned by Rattlesby
Management for the Von Trapp Children
Bells,
Bells, Bells
Orchestra
and stage band
Arrangements
Commissioned by the Bucks
County Orchestra
August Fields Afternoon
Chamber
orchestra
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