Derek Johnson "Fragments"

Derek Johnson is a composer, electric guitarist and educator active in the world of contemporary concert music and beyond. His compositions have been performed throughout the United States and Canada by leading soloists and ensembles including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNOW and Montreal’s Nouvel Ensemble Moderne. He is a founding member in the virtuoso chamber ensemble BASILICA and a regular performer with the post-rock improvisation collective the goodhands team. Johnson has performed internationally with the powerhouse new music ensemble the Bang On A Can All-Stars in collaboration with guest artists Iva Bittova, Don Byron, Bill Frisell, Glenn Kotche (Wilco), Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Steve Reich and Ryuichi Sakamoto. He has served as a faculty member in the music department of Columbia College Chicago, as an Associate Instructor of Composition at Indiana University’s Jacob School of Music and as faculty at the Bang On A Can Summer Institute. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the Ball State University School of Music. Derek is an avid transcriber and is currently working in collaboration with the innovative Swedish band Meshuggah on a series of transcription books encompassing the band’s complete discography.

Fragments brings together a series of short character pieces originally intended for other projects. The 1st and 3rd pieces (Star Music and Blues for Anton) were first envisioned as solo piano pieces, while the 2nd and 4th pieces (A song of sorts and Fantasy) were written respectively for soprano and violin (to a poem by William Carlos Williams) and mixed quartet (clarinet, violin, cello and piano).

In re-imagining these pieces for violin and piano I had the unique opportunity to edit, re-arrange and re-compose them knowing from the start what my “raw-footage” was. As a result, I approached the project from a rather “cinematic” point of view. I’m continually fascinated by the visceral and cognitive power of film, and am eager to incorporate the techniques used in that medium (foreshadowing, use of perspective, various methods of editing) to tie together (and sometimes to un-tie) the unified and disparate elements in my own composition. Thus, my truncated little character pieces have become the protagonists in a “short film” (of sorts) without picture, played-out by two instrumentalists on the stage and cut together using a reoccurring and evolving motto in the form of the opening piano gesture and sonority. Below is a “shot-list” with thoughts and descriptions of the pieces to help the audience both gain and lose their bearings in the cognitive and viscerally charged act of listening.

Motto I
1. Star Music – How it thinks to look at the stars, interrupted by how it feels.
Motto II
2. A song of sorts (w/o words) – the hidden text revealed:
Let snake wait, under his weed, and the writing be of words.
Slow, and quick, sharp to strike, quite to wake. Sleepless. (William Carlos Williams)
Motto III
3. Blues for Anton – A nocturnal ostinato underneath wide “Webern-ian” intervals. A blues for one of my favorite stargazers.
Motto IV
4. Fantasy – A slow opening unfolds a harmonic background that is later repeated with fast music superimposed above it.
Though the tempo changes and the content is elaborated, the slow harmonic background, or frame, retains its original speed
and proportion.
Motto V: liquidation

Fragments was written (and re-written) for, and is dedicated to, Benjamin Sung and Ji-Hye Chang