Fiddler's Green, Op. 177 (2025)

Program Notes:

I have always been impressed with my friend Dovas Lietuvninkas's trumpet playing since we went to Eastman together. I got to know him better on a personal level my last year, since most of our classmates graduated while we stayed for our student teaching placements. I have been lucky enough to keep in touch with him through the years, and it was a year or two ago that he mentioned he was forming a trumpet trio. I also knew Bailey from my Eastman years and while I have yet to meet Demian, he must be sufficiently weird in the right ways to form this trio!

I knew immediately that I wanted to write a piece for their ensemble but it took a while to find the right subject matter. Dovas is a fan of all things pirates and is currently engaging with the New England folk music scene, so something along the line of sailor's music seemed the natural route to go. "Fiddler's Green" is an eponymous tune about a sailor's afterlife - neither heaven nor hell, but a third place where sailors could drink, dance, and be merry for eternity. This place was first referenced in literature in the 1800s, and the tune was written in 1966 by John Conolly although it is often mistaken for a true folk song. This tune forms the basis the work, which uses both live and pre-recorded electronics to ponder the relationship between the living and those who have passed on.