Ukarumpa Balus

for Oboe and Tape

Duration: 7:00 min.

Click here for free download of the tape part

Program Notes:

When Aleksandra Pansik asked me to write a piece for oboe and drone, I immediately thought of the propeller planes I grew up listening to in Ukarumpa, Papua New Guinea - the 402, 206, and King Air. The country is so mountainous with so many fault lines and such a challenging climate for road maintenance that few places in the country are accessible by car; instead, the mountainsides are dotted with grass airstrips that remain open as long as the local population is motivated to keep them mowed. As a result, many airplanes would take off every day from the nearby airstrip and circle the centre I lived on before assuming the flight path to their destination, and I would hum whatever song came to mind or improvise along with the drone they created. Of course, this drone would shift in pitch due to the Doppler effect, so I would shift the key I was humming in as well. Ukaruampa Balus contains all original melodic material, but I tried to preserve the feeling of the oboe shifting keys along with the propeller drone through modulating melodies, shifting short repeated patterns up or down by quarter tones, and glissandos.