Decou[page turner] is a literal title, describing the construction of the piece and absolute nature of the music. Decoupage is a French term for cutting and pasting paper images onto surfaces (usually wooden) so that it appears as though they were painted. I emulated that literally, as the piece is a musical decoupage wherein, I grafted a series of musical ideas onto the “wooden” sound of the marimba. The second half of the title is a bit of a joke in how the pace of the sheet music often requires quick page turns, thus the “page turner” descriptor.

When the Copeland Trio approached me about this work, I was immediately drawn to the idea of creating a work focused on textures and dense harmony/rhythm. The intimacy of this instrumentation allows for great dynamic range and very flexible textures, lending itself to a more experimental sound.
The inherent texture-focused nature of the music draws inspiration primarily from free jazz. This led me to revisit one of my favorite and most influential jazz albums, Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew. The way the title track alternates truly free passages with “groove” sections that have a more defined pulse became an important component to the structure of the work.

I emulated this alteration of free and more metered sections that evolve from one another. The free sections introduce ideas and build energy into the groove sections before falling apart back into another free section, restarting the cycle. After this process repeats a few times, it settles into a post-minimal B section to provide some more tonal material and a bit of a reprieve for the listener before ending with a recap of the free-groove cycle to end out the piece.
This piece is dedicated to my friends in the Copeland Trio. Thank you for your thoughtful collaboration, and for letting me write a wild piece for NASA 2023. It’s been one of my favorites to work on thus far and has really pushed me as a composer.