Recorded by Gregory McCallum on Southern Quilt (MSR Classics). The piece was premiered by Jeffrey Kahane at the Spoleto Festival U.S.A., which commissioned it. Blue Ridge Airs I is not simply a setting of songs or a mirroring of sounds, however above all, it is a landscape. Even a summer bird of the region, the indigo bunting, finds its way into the texture. The strumming of the banjo and the drone of the Appalachian dulcimer accompany several melodies. Nonsense songs are translated into improvisatory gestures. ![]() Rather than repeating verses to draw out a ballad, the piano conveys the action through constant variation, development, fragmentation and overlapping. In this piece the piano becomes the singer and storyteller. Among the songs included are "Charmin' Betsy," "East Virginny," "Groundhog" and "Pretty Saro." The overall shape of the work was developed from "Poor Omie Wise," a North Carolina ballad based on the 1808 murder of a young woman drowned by her lover. ![]() ![]() ![]() In Blue Ridge Airs I, I have incorporated songs of the Southern Appalachians which were passed down through the oral tradition before the days of radio and recording.
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