Home Trilogy by Michael Burritt

Home Trilogy is a three movement work commissioned by the world renowned percussion group Nexus. It was premiered by Nexus (Bob Becker, Russell Hartenberger, Garry Kvistad and Bill Cahn) in May 2015 with Michael Burritt soloist. The first two movements, Painted Hills and White Pines, refer to the seasons in the beautiful wooded area where my home is in Rochester NY, and the third, Home, carries the title of the work and is meant to serve as an epilogue. Home by Kelsey Peterson I. Maples spear the hills, turn them red, leaves layered thick like oil paint unmixed. From your window, it’s a picture. Standing beneath them, look up to see through red lenses, shifting, the sky. One lands at your feet. The dried leaf, speckled brown, skitters. You watch until it’s out of sight. Soon, the trees are bare. II. Snow shakes the limbs but does not break them, they hold, laden with white. The dusting glints in sunlight, fastens to the branch, secured with frost. There is a way to live. Each evergreen bearing snow into the blue sky knows. At night, the pines radiate a grey opaque in starlight. III. From there, see planet earth, rounded out before you, like the sea. Edged with light from the sun behind it, its continents a deep navy with spangles of gold. Cities clustered into whiteness. Towns, flecks, lights finer than dust. The rim of sun thickens, and the planet’s edge burnishes tan. Across its surface, green emerges. A day begins, a day ends. Home Trilogy is Published by Keyboard Percussion Publications www.mostlymarimba.com Audio and Video Production by Four/Ten Media www.fourtenmedia.net