Gregory Short – Northwest Composer
August 17, 2008
Gregory Short DMA composition, August 14, 1938 – April 1, 1999, was an American pianist and composer, the first Northwest pianist to extensively feature music by American and Northwest composers and possibly was the most frequently performed Northwest composer in the Pacific Northwest.
His compositional structures are harmonic in conception rather than contrapuntal or mathematical. His vernacular themes derive from a multicultural environment across the United States and the globe. A tonal painter, Short composed with color and emotional intentions, including tone clusters, through a very wide range of classical music forms.
Recordings and Reviews
Mt. Takhoma for orchestra is played without pause. The University of Washington Wind Ensemble, Richard Byrnes, conductor, premiered Mt. Takhoma, which is an earlier name for Mt. Rainier. In a later performance, a reviewer considered Mt.Takhoma ”…a very attractive composition indeed, within the context of twentieth century tonalities … a solemn structure … intriguing suspensions get resolved in ingenious ways.” Michael Moravski, Eugene Register-Guard.
“I grew up in Renton, Washington (south of Seattle) and was lucky enough to have always lived in a home with a view of ‘The Great White One’ … at 14,411 feet, it [Mt. Rainier] is the highest of the six major peaks in Washington State and it is the most photographed natural wonder in the Pacific Northwest.” Gregory Short, KOCH Internal Classics
The Raven Speaks for orchestra, which began as a six-part sonatina for piano written for the American Bicentennial, is based on songs and dances from Pacific Northwest Coastal Indians living in Washington, Canada, and Alaska.
Beginning with the Totem Pole (Haida) the six parts spiral profoundly inward and around back to close with the Totem Pole (Kwakiutl) when ”Raven’s earlier Totem Pole song is heard in several guises. Low strings represent the dark, wild tundra; a distance pack of wolves can be heard sining in the clear night air. The suite concludes with the first rays of sunlight as Raven chuckles to himself.” Gregory Short, Albany Records.
Special instrumentation includes piano and separate Celesta parts, 3 hand cymbals, 3 large timpani, and an additional glockenspiel as well as 12 crystal goblets, box of rocks. bell tree, bell chain, vibraphone, marimba, 6 cymbals, tam tam, bass drum, large rattle or bandolier of idiophones, whip and sleigh bells.
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