John D. McDonald

basset horn and piano

Composer's Note:

To Ray Jackendoff, with admiration.

"Peace is indeed a process, not a static goal. It is a dynamic, complex and difficult process. "
(Jayantha Dhanapala, Secretary General, Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process, and Senior Advisor to the President of Sri Lanka)

Conceived in June 2006 as a response to the horrific civilian bus explosion near Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka that killed 62 persons including children, youth, and their parents, "Peace Process" essentially asks which part of peace includes senseless killing. The work's title refers not only to "process" in making peace, but to musical processes I employ to make the piece.

When I traveled to Anuradhapura in 2001 with my wife and son, I transcribed a distinctive birdsong heard while walking through this ancient capital city (there is an earlier piano version of this music entitled "Bird at Anuradhapura"). This song is first heard played by the basset horn, and is intercut with a lament in memory of my father-in- law, a Sri Lankan politician whose work on behalf of peaceful society on the island is often cited and remembered. The birdsong is my personal memory of the city, and it engages in an alternating process with the memorial lament to yield the opening section of the work. A tragically inflexible paraphrase/altered setting of a traditional Sri Lankan folk drama tune (a "Nurtiya" song, part of a comparatively new genre of operatic folk play distinguished from the older "Nadagama") assaults the listener and forms the center of the work; the basset horn dispatches the tune with urgency against ritualized, plangent piano chords. This central process of the work represents the destruction of life and memory that can result from rigid adherence to narrow agendas, preventing dissent or differentiation. This unyielding Nurtiya song gives way to a questioning coda after two verses, and the work closes with a brief, tentative return to the lament and birdsong of the opening. Sadly, the work does not answer its own questions and cannot resolve its own processes.

Despite the difficult subject of "Peace Process," I relished the possibility of featuring the elegiac basset horn in a solo capacity during my work on the piece. I am particularly pleased to be playing the premiere performances of the work with its dedicatee, the extraordinary linguist and musician Ray Jackendoff.