Days Between For three alto flutes + solo dancer download PDF score download mp3 (6.9 MB) Days Between is partly derived from a section of a previous composition (which was a complete failure) that was called If But For the Days Between Us, begun in February 2002. The original title referred to a peculiar aspect of time that creates an illusion of distance between people who are waiting to see one another. Days Between for three alto flutes was completed in December of 2002 and was first performed at CalArts in February 2003 by Andrea Lieberherr, Terese Wagner, and Julia Tichi, with choreography and dance by Miyuki Kobayashi. The attempt with the current piece is to create the illusion of an active, shifting sound space between the three alto flutes (who are set apart onstage in a wide triangle and designated in the score as Left, Center, and Right, as seen from the audience). This is done by projecting overlapping fragments of a melodic line into the actual space that is occupied by the solo dancer. This process begins at the outset of the piece with the free intoning of a set of three subtly changing pitches, which is intended both to quiet the space and to set into motion the expansion of the central melodic line. The line doesn’t remain with any one of the parts for long – one flute may suspend a melodic pitch while the other two pick up the line, etc. Simultaneous appearances of material are never to be played in a strict unison, rather, there are 11 cues placed at certain entrances that are points of realignment; the parts proceed from these points with some degree of individuality. There are two occurrences of controlled group improvisation that serve as transitional sections, increasing the momentum and general energy of the music. In these sections the musicians are each given a melodic object that they are to use as a core element from which to derive the pitch and rhythmic content of their improvisation, leading into their next written melodic phrase. The second of these transitional sections leads into an improvised solo for the Center flute that occurs simultaneously with a repeated figure in the Left and Right flute parts. A diminuendo out of this section sets up a change to the static, meditative repeated figure that introduces a more positive augmented tonality, bringing about the close of the piece with a slight expansion of the harmonic figure that was intoned at the beginning.