Cycles is a collection of four solos for tenor steelpan I commissioned from Dave Molk in 2019. The collection consists of Evening, Waves, Sun, and Morning. I premiered these works on April 5, 2019.
Program notes by Dave Molk:
As with Spice, these pieces explore the softer, more lyrical side of the steel pan, using cardboard dowels in many instances instead of traditional steel pan mallets. Each piece may be played individually, and the set has easier and harder moments, with lots of room for creative interpretation to make these your own. “Sun,” for instance, may be played solo, as a duo, or with a backing track. How to interpret the title of the second piece, “Waves,” and whether or not to reflect that musically is left open to the player. The entire set runs about 20 minutes.
These pieces expand the solo steelpan repertoire in several important ways. They explore the use of alternatives to the standard rubber tipped mallets. Evening uses cardboard tubes which create an interesting atmosphere. They have a softer, darker tone, but depending on the hardness of the cardboard can have a bit of a tickier attack. Morning is the first piece to use custom bundle rods that I built for the steelpan. These are a scaled down version of drum set bundle rods, but are new, novel mallets for the steelpan. These have a similar sound to chopsticks (a favorite mallet of composer Andy Akiho), but with more body and the characteristic attack sound that comes from the rods colliding with each other on each attack. Waves leaves the choice of mallets up to the performer and I perform it with cardboard tubes on the first half and my pan rods on the second half.
This collection also expands the compositional style of works available for the steelpan. Dave’s music lives in the contemporary classical world, but is heavily influenced by rock, hip hop, electronic music, and more. These works vary from sweet lyrical and melodic to hypnotically minimalistic to hard-driving and energetic. These pieces acknowledge and honor the steelpan’s roots in Trinidad, but also expand how the instrument is perceived.
Plans to record these pieces in the studio have been repeatedly interrupted. At first, recording the pieces was delayed while a new custom tenor steelpan was being built for me by the brilliant Kyle Dunleavy. The original plan was to record the pieces during summer 2020, but due to the pandemic those plans had to be put on hold. My instrument was in the US and I was in Canada. I could not cross the border and I did not want my new pan to go through customs since they have damaged my instruments in the past. Now that things are starting to stabilize, I have the instrument with me in Canada and am planning to finally record the collection in summer 2022. I will post audio for these tracks when it is available.
The score for Cycles is available on Dave’s website here.