CREATURE OVERTURE
Opus. 11
Instrumentation: Chamber Orchestra
Duration: 10 Minutes, One Movement
Written For: Friends at New England Conservatory, 2014
PROGRAM NOTE.
I stumbled upon the work of Linda Baker-Cimini this time last year and was enamored and fascinated by her strange illustrations. I wrote her a few fan emails and she was able to come to one of my concerts last year, and we agreed to have this collaboration. You will hear four distinct sections, each one a short reference to one of her creatures. Can you hear the teapot song from your childhood in the second section?
ARTIST biography.
Linda Baker-Cimini was born in the year of the wooden dragon. This CAN be a fire hazard and exacerbates a predisposition to an assortment of phobias and generalized neurosis. Other than that she's very well adjusted. Just make sure you don't touch her feet. Ever. Also of historical significance: it was a time when a certain species of Beatle infected young girls with mass hysteria. Then came the Rolling Stones and so on.
Many other things were happening simultaneously. Linda was unaware of all this. She was busy having staring contests with cows, reading 'The National Geographic' magazine and dragging large, interesting things home to store in the pole shed for further study. They didn't have a T.V. She was omnivorous in her choice of reading material and WAS, if truth be told, VERY much influenced by a book's cover. She grew up on a dead end road. The town was proud of its obscurity and was known as the smallest community in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, USA, population: 176. It was beautiful.
Linda didn't have a lot of playmates that were of the same species,(besides her brother), but she had LOTS of imaginary friends and there were seasonal friends... mud puppies and toads in the neighbors fire pond. You could never skate on it because the chickens walked all over it the minute it started to freeze and made the ice all lumpy. As a child, (and as an older child), she had a strong aversion to organized scholastic pursuits and most other activities that involved speaking to or making eye contact with other children. She did however like to watch them from the safety of the playground's observation blind.
Linda wishes she was born with a prehensile tail. She loves coffee. She's allergic to wool, (nasty rash is what happens). Her favorite color is Safety Green. She believes that having large feet increases ones stability.
She presently resides in Western Massachusetts with her pet caterpillar, Hugo. Her pet night crawler, Bill, has gone missing. Her mother has a worm farm in New Mexico. Maybe Bill went there to visit.