Players

ENS.2008.9 | 7′
Texts by Don DeLillo
Tenor & Piano, Violin, Viola, Cello

Score

Players


From Paul’s Boutique to Girl Talk to the Pictures Generation, I have always been interested in sampling and appropriation in music, the arts, literature, what have you, and the idea of making a new thing from others’ works has long intrigued me. However, the main impetus for composing Players was simply this: every so often I come across a little musical phrase in some other composer’s work I find fascinating on its own and would enjoy hearing over and over again removed from its original context. In this composition I have done exactly that, rearranging original music by other composers for string trio in alternation with piano interludes (the strings and piano only play together in the final section), adding a freely-composed vocal line on top. The texts are taken from the beginning of every Don DeLillo novel published through 2008, Americana to Falling Man, because few writers know how to kick things off better than Don DeLillo.