Time Tracks

In “Time Tracks”, the composer was mainly working with two compositional issues. One is the organization of time, and the other is the evolution of musical gestures.  Different time strata were created through different groupings of instruments, ranging from the entire ensemble as one group, the ensemble divided into several subgroups, to eleven instruments each representing an individual subgroup. The superimposition of different time strata becomes the main subject of the piece. On top of these time strata, one also witnesses the evolution of two musical gestures in the opening bar of the piece - the trombone glissando figure and the bass drum stroke. The surface musical materials throughout the piece are mostly derived from these two raw musical gestures. “Time Tracks” was commissioned by the “Contemporary Chamber Orchestra Taipei” in Taiwan for a portrait concert of Mei-Fang Lin in Taipei, Taiwan in 2001.