Summer Harbor With Circle Dance

Date of Composition: 2009

Duration: 23'

Category: Large Ensemble (6 or more players)

Instrumentation: Woodwind Quintet, String Quartet, Double Bass

Summer Harbor with Circle Dance was commissioned for the 2nd St. Petersburg Festival , “The Contemporary Past", conceived by Albert Barbeta-Marti and was premiered there in 2010. It is a sonic movie of a very particular time and place - July 30, 2006, my mother’s 87th birthday, - the eastern promenade of Portland, Maine. On a sun-filled late afternoon, my mother, my sister and I sat in a car with a glass of wine, looking put at the harbor teeming with activity. In the nearer foreground , three young Somali girls , holding hands , danced without music in a circle . My mother died two days later.