Stay (2016)

clarinet in Bb, vibraphone, and piano

Duration: 8’30”

Click HERE to view a PDF of score.

Available for purchase: Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus

Stay was featured on Bellor’s debut album STAY (2016). Recording features: Cory Tiffin (clarinet), Luigi Ng (vibraphone), and Jae Ahn-Benton (piano). Additional performances include the New Music at the Green Mill Series in Chicago, WUOL’s (90.5FM) Unheard series by the Louisville-based chamber group, A/Tonal, Adams State University faculty series and at the Missouri State University Composition Festival performance February 27, 2017. It was selected for performance at the 2017 IAWM Annual concert at Kansas U.

We may not remember activities or conversations we had yesterday, but we would recall vivid details about specific events in the more distant past, often times memories we want to hold onto, and hope they stay with us as time passes. As the memories become more and more distant, details may become altered due to our changing interpretation/perception of that event. I came across this quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on the concept of Memory: “The very idea of truth in memory, and the attendant possibility of error, implies that we are naturally realists about the past: but this fact about us doesn’t dictate answers to questions about just how, or how often, we do remember past truly.” Relating this to my composition, the eight-note motive at the beginning reflects the objective memory we hold onto, and the elaborations in the clarinet line represents the subjectivity we have when recalling past events and how our interpretations can creep in and re-shape the memories we have over time.