Commissioned by: Percussion Group The Hague, Aurelia Saxophone Quartet & Orkest de Volharding, with financial support from the Netherlands Fund for the Creation of Music
First Performance: Percussion Group The Hague, Aurelia Saxophone Quartet & Orkest de Volharding, October 2002, Paradiso, Amsterdam
Instrumentation: 6 Percussion, Saxophone Quartet (SATB), Piccolo, 3 Saxophones, 3 Trombones, French Horn, Piano & Bass Guitar.
Duration: 11’

Info/Program note:
Composition in 3 Parts was a joint commission from Percussion Group The Hague, Orkest de Volharding and the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet and was written specifically for the 25th anniversary of the percussion group in 2002. It’s a highly systematic and rhythmic process-piece in which various ways of filling the bar are investigated at full force. The work was conceived as a sort of demonstration piece, focussing on ‘group- expertise’ and highlighting different group functions as it progresses. In this way the three movements explore different combinations of the ensembles and are each colored according to a specific percussion set-up, moving from wood in the first part to a combined setup of woods, metals and skins in the second to a final section for skins alone. Together with its predecessor Battle Hymns, Composition in 3 Parts forms a little duo of pieces in which driving rhythmic processes are coupled to the evocation of a kind of imagined tribal barbarism.