Composed for Maureen Hurd Hause and premiered by her at the 2020 Henri Selmer Paris Summer Academy, May 28, 2020.
PROGRAM NOTE
Tower House was begun in March, 2019 during Maureen’s and my residency at the Burren College of Art. I finished it upon returning home in the summer of 2019. It was composed with the idea of being played in Newtown Castle in Ballyvaughan, a part of the college grounds. It is a solo (A) clarinet piece for a very resonant space. Many of what we American tourists would be inclined to call a “castle” are more aptly termed “Tower Houses” – owing to the fact that they were generally aristocratic family homes with basic fortifications (pre-cannons, or 15th-17th centuries). In County Clare, Ireland there are about 230 of them. Newtown Castle is, itself, a tower house and not a castle.
Solo Clarinet in A
Right here
Tower House
Solo Clarinet in A
Right here