Orchestration

Choir (SATB), string quartet, and optional electronics

Duration

5 minutes

Commissioned by/Premiere

October 8, 2022
Conspirare
Miro Quartet
Craig Hella Johnson, conductor
Commissioned by Conspirare and Craig Hella Johnson

Score

Available from Project Schott New York.

Note

“Wind Phone, Goleta, CA,” was inspired by a walk along the beach in Goleta, California. I happened upon a strange object, a disconnected telephone. I later discovered that it was a wind phone, a replica of one from Japan that allows people to speak messages to those they have lost.

When I began writing a piece for Conspirare, I reached out to my good friend and frequent collaborator, Stephanie Fleischmann. Together, we came up with the idea of a piece for choir that was an imaginary conversation between a protagonist and an unnamed lost loved one. 

The piece makes extensive use of air sounds made by the choir to imitate the windy beach, and an antique rotary phone to evoke the call. Stephanie’s text is carefully constructed to make use of extensive ‘s’ and ‘shh’ sounds so that the words sung by the choir can drift gradually into the wind.