Martin J. Van Klompenberg: Ghost Light for Bassoon & Piano

$25.00

Unavailable

per item

Quantity

SKU:

Add to Cart

Ghost Light

for bassoon and piano

by Martin J. Van Klompenberg - American bassoonist and composer

FROM THE COMPOSER:

Ghost Light was inspired by an April 2020 article in the New York Times, entitled

“The Ghost Light, A Howl for the Lost City of Broadway.”1 Despite plenty of

experience performing in musicals, I had never before heard of the concept of the

ghost light, a single bulb placed on the stage by the last person in the theater to

keep the stage lit with just enough light to allow for safe movement throughout the

theater the following day. Outside of union strikes, there have only been three

multi-day closures of the entirety of Broadway, and each of the movements of the

piece, reflect these times.

Dimmed Marquees refers to the air raid drills used during World War II, to ensure

that in the case of attack, the marquees of Broadway could be turned off. The

shows went on throughout the war, but throughout these exercises occurred.

Musically, this movement is a loose nocturne, with melodic elements based around

musical motifs of shows of the 1940s, including Annie, Get Your Gun and

Oklahoma.

Track 11 refers to the song “When September Ends,” from the Green Day album,

American Idiot. This album led to one of the first musicals based around the events

of September 11, 2001. I wanted this movement to emphasize the eerie feelings of

loss of that historic day. The minimalist nature of the movement, where the piano

plays the same measure continuously, portrays the tense anxiety of those first days.

Same Day, Every Day was the most heavily influence movement from the article.

In the Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic ground the world to a halt, and yet

news was happening SO fast, that despite the fact that we couldn’t leave our

homes, it felt like the world was spinning faster on its axis. In honor of the 37 plays

and musicals that had to lower their curtain, some never to re-open, the melodic

material is loosely based around a note set based on the names of the affected

shows.