Donald M. Wilson

harp and tape-delay effects

composer's note: "The SUITE DE JOURNEE for Harp and Tape-Delay Apparatus is an ar­rangement of excerpts from a longer work in the same medium, DE­CISIONS, DECISIONS! The parent work was inspired by a seminar on new harp techniques given by Bowling Green State University harp­ist Arcola Clark in 1968. Ms. Clark's successor, Ruth Ingle­field, provided encouragement not only through repeated requests for a harp piece from me but also through her vigorous expansion of the harp program at BGSU and her many fine performances of new music for harp. She was ably assisted in these endeavors by Dean Roush, a graduate of BGSU in composition and a part-time in­structor in the Music Composition/History Department.

Work on DECISIONS, DECISIONS! was not actually begun, however, until June 1977 when I came across the original sketches for the piece while sorting through compositional materials prior to starting work on HEXAGON for Piano under the auspices of the BGSU Faculty Research Committee. As each frame of music was completed, I took it to Dean Roush for audition and possible change. Intent on completing the harp piece quickly, I worked on it every day for five weeks and finished it in July of 1977. The piece is dedicated to Mr. Roush.

The extraction of material from DECISIONS, DECISIONS! to create the SUITE DE JOURNEE for Harp and Tape-Delay Apparatus was promp- ted by Ruth Inglefield's request for a shorter work, one that would be more accessible to student harpists than the parent work.. Dr. Inglefield and I separately listed our favorite portions of DECISIONS, DECISIONS! and then I combined these selections into a suite of movements with programmatic titles."