Updog

Instrumentation: Piano, Electric Bass, Percussion

Duration: 8 min

Commissioned by Bearthoven

Premiered on 9/22/14 at the Minot Modern Festival in North Dakota

About the Work

Updog (an overtly terrible title that comes from an obviously terrible joke) is a piece that’s uncompromising in its language and is unapologetically crude. The work introduces musical ideas and establishes them as characters. As the piece unfolds a dialogue between them emerges. At times they interrupt each other, at other times they work together to create a gesture larger than the sums of their parts. Most of all though, Updog has a hard-driving and unrelenting swagger that ties the whole work together.