Protosaurus

Instrumentation: Clarinet in Bb, Bassoon, Trumpet in C, Trombone, Violin, Double Bass, Percussion

Duration: 5 min

Commissioned by Exceptet

Premiered on 5/17/15 at Cloud City in Brooklyn, NY

About the Work

Based off of the instrumentation in Stravinsky’s “L'Histoire du soldat”, “Protosaurus” is a rowdy, wonky, lumbering work that uses very simple motives to build up to a monstrously large sound. The orchestration of the “L'Histoire” ensemble has a quirky and sometimes comical wind band type of sound that “Protosaurus” fully embraces. The “Proto” in “Protosaurus” came from the idea of using very simple motives which I thought of as “proto-elements” and the “saurus” part of the title came about due to the work sounding like a large monster, or dinosaur. A Protosaurus is not a real dinosaur.