For Pierrot Ensemble + Percussion
Wandering Rocks is the tenth episode in James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses. It is a set of short narratives which take place simultaneously throughout the city of Dublin. In this piece, I have created a collection of eight little portraits of people in my life, with their initials indicated in boxes at the top of the sections that represent them. In a similar way to how Ulysses interweaves narratives through interruptions and coincidence, I have written a work which interweaves eight distinct miniatures through counterpoint and succession. This allows them all to exist side by side in a similar fashion to Joyce’s depiction of Dublin.
This piece is an homage to all of the composers who have influenced me so greatly since beginning my journey as a composer myself during my first year of college. Chiefly among those composers are Harold Meltzer, whom I had the honor of meeting right before I began studying composition, and Andrew Norman, whose music has constantly resonated with me in deeply personal ways.
This piece is dedicated to Kevin Dettmar, whose class on Joyce gave me a new understanding of the wonders of fiction.
OLIVER DUBON 