“A New Day” is the final of three movements from Remi (2007), and the third in a cycle of nine in Children’s Suite (2007-2014). It was composed the year my oldest child Remi was born. Like all the other movements in the suite, it is written entirely on the white keys of the piano, in pandiatonic C major.
The right hand of the piano plays patterns from a pool of canonic material that appears from urfunk etude (1997) through Madra (1999) and Sequences (2000), and which is later referred to in Linea Nigra (2015). The left hand fills out the harmony in dyads of fifths and fourths. It is a slow variation on familial themes, appropriate for a new arrival.
Performed by Stephen Clarke, piano, Arraymusic, November 2020
Audio and image from video by Daniel Tapper
Music and composer’s notes copyright Bruce A. Russell 2022
Bruce A. Russell aka Ibrahim El Mahboob (b. Kingston, ON, 1968) is a composer and self-taught pianist living and working in Toronto (Tkarón:to, the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat). He studied at York University with James Tenney and Phillip Werren. He has composed music for the Madawaska String Quartet, Modern Times Stage Company, McMaster Dancers and choreographers Pam Johnson and Tracy Renee Stafford. Interest in his work increased in 2020, with performances by Arraymusic, Prism Percussion, Second Note Duo, San Juan Symphony and Idaho Falls Symphony. He was host of Radio Music Gallery, and has written for Musicworks and I Care if You Listen. His interests are in 20th and 21st century concert music especially postminimalism, and music of the African diaspora including notated and non-notated forms. He is a parent of three and is employed in the financial sector.