Philip Carlsen

Bass Clarinet and Marimba

I wrote Ephemera for Amy Advocat and Matt Sharrock of the brilliant duo Transient Canvas, inspired by their expressive and virtuosic playing in many videos, including a virtual workshop for composers at the 2020 Charlotte New Music Festival. They premiered Ephemera in May 2021 as part of the online National Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc.

The piece is meant to be fun and challenging for the performers, with playful interactions through doublings and imitation, great variety of register and color, and full exploitation of the two instruments' huge ranges, such as in several passages of melodic fragments in the lowest octave of the marimba, where its characteristic overtones, three octaves and a major third above, are doubled by the bass clarinet in its highest register. In keeping with the title, Ephemera shifts gears frequently: pompous and flashy one moment; as simple as a children's round the next. Although the mood is prevailingly lighthearted, I felt the need, writing in the time of coronavirus, to include an extended passage of deep grief , a transcribed excerpt from my 1990 marimba quartet, Evening's Sabres. Following the catharsis of that memory, the piece ends in hope, alluding to the joyous communal music-making of the Ugandan amadinda and embaire xylophones.