amaru
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Orchestra
- Composed
- 2022
- Duration
- 7'
- Publisher
- Self Published
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About this piece
A seven-minute work for solo cello and string orchestra commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and premiered on 8 March 2022 in the Green Umbrella series at Walt Disney Concert Hall, with Jay Campbell as soloist and Vimbayi Kaziboni conducting. Amaru is the rainbow-coloured, two-headed world serpent of Andean cosmology, linked to underground waters and transitions between worlds. The piece explores the loosening and tightening of soloist, strings and conductor through rich harmonies and cyclic forms, and was written to close a program alongside the composer's Irish-landscape piece Talamh (land).
Technical overview
The composer describes detuning the string orchestra and 'wild harmonic gestures'; the solo part was written for a professional new-music cellist.