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Cut A Rug (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

“Cut a Rug” (2019) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano

This one movement fantasy is dance music. More specifically, it is an homage to 1920’s American dance music. The piece works well as a concert music, but I think a choreographer might find it fun to work with. “Cut a Rug” is energetic, dramatic and abstract, often toying with the motive of an alternating third. But there’s more than that. I found four pop tunes from the 1920’s which feature that alternating third interval and incorporated these tunes into the mix. You might listen for “Has Anybody Seen My …

Three Fantasies On African American Songs For String Quartet (Score), Gary Smart

Music Faculty Research and Scholarship

I have been interested in mixing cultural aesthetics and musical styles for all of my life. Gunther Schuller coined the term “third stream” to describe the intertwining of American jazz with the Western European musical traditions. Of course there are so many branches to the trees of both African American music and the European traditions, that Schuller’s term can only have a very general meaning. Still, the “third stream” description does fit my Three Fantasies. In these three movements I combine different materials, styles, and developmental methods, mixing traditions freely, as I attempt to create a specifically American new music. …