Fortuitous

By Jack Curtis Dubowsky

Item Number: D1.SM-10-0002

8.5 x 11 inches.

Composer Jack Curtis Dubowsky says: Fortuitous is an effort to capture some of what we do in the electroacoustic Jack Curtis Dubowsky Ensemble and seal it into notated instrumental music. I had a student who was very interested in Steve Reich's "phasing" technique, and it reminded me of how the Ensemble sometimes plays in a similar manner. Often the Ensemble has shifting asynchronous rhythms, as an arpeggiator spins out of control while a live rhythm section carries on defiantly. Other times, different players in the Ensemble have different interpretations of where the "one" or downbeat is, often displaced by a mere eighth note. When we were on tour and listening to our second CD in the van, I was fascinated by such a discrepancy in our musical understanding of a track. We could play the rhythm together, but each counted it differently. I have always been fascinated by grooves where the pulse is strong, but the downbeat is ambiguous or obscured. This was something I explored to a lesser extent in Bassoon Concerto No. 1. Fortuitous is a further exploration of this.