like a broken clock (2018)
[2222.4221.timp.strings]
Duration: 9’
Commissioned by the California Symphony
Premiered May 5, 2018 at the Lesher Center for the Arts, CA
California Symphony Orchestra; Donato Cabrera, conductor
View the score
Audio excerpt available through the California Symphony
The title of this piece is a modified lyric borrowed from a Joanna Newsom song, In California. In the chorus, she sings, ‘like a little clock/ that trembles on the edge f the hour/ only ever calling out Cuckoo Cuckoo.” What attracted me to that text was the imagery of off kilter, delicate tapping/clicking rhythms. like a broken clock is music that sputters, ticks, and clangs, summoning the minutes and seconds that jitter and dance.
Press:
“Balch has the ability to compose intellectually stimulating but emotionally transparent textures, of which a tight-voiced, legato string ascent before the climax provided the most shining example. The combination of buoyant absurdity and full-throated catharsis developed her source text, an intimate Joanna Newsom song whose clock is of the cuckoo variety, very aptly.”
“This is vividly imagined music, and Cabrera and the orchestra gave it a terse, evocative reading.”
— SF Gate
Previews:
Classical KDFC’s The State of the Arts: California Symphony’s Composer-in-Residence
California Symphony blog: Composer-in-Residence on Cuckoo Clocks, California, and Composing in Color