Lee Gannon

Flute

Lee Gannon composed his 1989 solo flute work DERELICT in response to his journey with AIDS. Not much is written about DERELICT beyond a brief mention in Gannon's obituary by music journalist Allan Kozinn, however, and in the program notes Gannon provides in the piece itself.

The compositional elements in DERELICT combine with inspirations from a range of composers to produce what Dr. Mark Martin calls, in a biographical sketch of Gannon and his Symphony No. 1 for Wind Ensemble, a "Neo-classical" style. Martin writes that Gannon was inspired by composers like Mozart, the French Les Six, and Gannon's own mentors and contemporaries (such as Corigliano or Karel Husa). Martin also writes that Gannon would often compose in a strict form (part of his "Neo-classical" style) but would later dismantle this form with the help of his mentor Byron Adams to "allow him lots of room for letting go, like using a fantasy-type approach in the middle of some other formal process."

Notably, though Gannon was obsessed with creating strict forms to eventually tear apart, DERELICT is unmetered. Even though there are tempi marked, the overall flow is left up to the performer, with "strictness" coming from the clear sections of the piece. Throughout, the use of extended techniques, flurried notes in rapid combinations, extreme registral shifts, and immense dynamic spectrums color DERELICT with the layers necessary to achieving the heavy, emotional material Gannon discusses in the program notes.

- Joshua Stine