Mobile I: Flurry was composed for flutist
Robin Meiksins, and is based on Alexander Calder’s 1948 mobile
Snow Flurry. Calder’s mobile has three main branches, each ending in eight or fourteen white circles. The piece likewise puts the flutist performing in three layers, each with their own identities — a low layer, belonging to the voice and certain low percussive techniques, a middle layer characterized by key clicks, tongue pizzicato, and breathy and voice-distorted tone, and an upper layer belonging to pure tones, flutter-tongue and timbre trills. The layers are introduced gradually, becoming progressively more entangled, then separating again at the end. A melody runs through each layer, repeatedly turning back and forth in each, finally coming into clear, pure statement near the end. Much like Calder’s mobile has open space surrounding arcs of shapes, the music is spacious, both vertical space outlined by the layers, and in the time between groups of notes.