"South Side Fantasy" was written during the late spring of 2002 for
Double Bass player George Vance (Silver Springs, Maryland) who
requested
a solo work. Mr. Vance premiered the composition at Ball State in
Indiana in February, 2003 and subsequently performed the work in
Adelaide,
Australia and most recently at the 2007 International Society of
Bassists Conference in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
"South Side Fantasy" for solo Double Bass and CD is a fantasy
journey
into a large Serbian hall on the south side of Chigago during the mid
1900's.
It's late at night and the Popovich Brothers tamburitza orchestra is
performing
on stage. We enter into that acoustical world the same way we
leave
- to the strains of the traditional Serbian farewell song 'Maro
Resavkinjo'
as sung by Teddy Popovich (a fitting homage to the late Adam Popovich
who
reposed in 2001).
The journey into this ethnic world is personalized for the
audience
by the double bass solo which at the same time both participates in the
Serbian ethnic experience and transforms it into a modern American
experience.
The new and the old are woven together into the sometimes chromatic and
othertimes modal and ethnic scales that form the basis of the soloist's
melodic material.
Structurally, the work is a suite of continuous movements - a
large
'ABaC' form with both the 'A' and 'B' themes reprised toward the end of
the fast 'C' section and tranformed by their new context.
Everything
is securely anchored by a tonality of D, which for emphasis and tension
is contrasted against its tri-tone counterpart - A-flat. Within
this
diametrically opposed tonal complex one can clearly hear standard
Serbian
harmonic cadential progressions which tie in with the Popovich Brothers
musical excerpts. These exceprts are prominently featured at
transition
points and form a musical framework for the entire
composition.
Many of the other sounds one hears in the CD accompaniment are
digitally
processed double bass samples (glissandi, harmonics sul-ponticello,
tapping
with the tip of the bow, etc.) For example, the loud
banging
that opens the work is actually a digitally processed sample of a
single
tap on the double bass soundboard.
"South Side Fantasy" is a work which seeks to express both the
heroic
and spirited character of the Serbian soul; qualities which I saw
in Adam Popovich whom I had the personal pleasure of meeting and
chating
with on several occasions. The mp3 excerpts above feature George Vance
on
Double Bass.