Get the Party Started with James Cuomo

I've recently come across a treasure trove at the BU library: nearly 100 scores from Media Press, Inc. (http://www.mediapressinc.com/home.php), a small publisher of modern music run out of University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (or at least near it).  Still operating since 1969, many of Media Press's pieces are quite short and span a wide range of instrumentations and techniques, and have a unique presentation (often coming in small, economical formats).  Because I'm an absolute mark for this kind of thing I vacuumed up a pile of scans from BU's trove, noticing that a few of them were a mere page.  I'll return to the company in time, but for now I'd like to introduce James Cuomo, who lives in Paris and has a pretty fascinating resume (including producing the tapes for John Cage's happening HPSCHD.  He's gotten eight pieces published by MP, and two of them are not only leaf-like, but pretty funny as well.

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Commissioned by the University of Illinois Summer Youth Music program, for zebulon pike and henry was written to be easy to play and double-reed centric.  I'm sure most composers have let the idea of basing a piece around the tuning process flash their brainpans (I know I have), and this one has a successful aleatoric structure.  At the top you'll notice a line for rebabs, which are fiddles from North Africa and the ancestor to the violin.  Cuomo mercifully allows for any melody instrument to play this line, but I'm wondering how the UI Summer Youth Music program got a hold of multiple rebabs.  Considering this piece would most likely come at the start of an evening's concert, it's a nice way to start off the diversions.  But all parties must come to an end.

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Though Dry Ralph is performable by one trombone, Cuomo has stated that he prefers at least three.  We're offered four fragments and a set of criteria for each, and oddly enough the guidelines only make things more confusing.  I don't think there are any recordings of this piece, so the multiple parts could overlap or might not.  Whatever the results they're sure to be odd and pungent.  The two pieces offer a typical Saturday night story: you get all riled up for the big party and end up dry heaving in a trash can by the end of the night.

Cuomo's website: http://www.cuomo.info/

Cuomo's YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/jimcuomofilms/videos?view=0

~PNK