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A dozen years ago, composer Phillip Bimstein settled at the foot of the sheer sandstone walls just outside Zion National Park in southern Utah. Ever since, he's been exploring that landscape for his musical inspiration. He has served two terms as mayor of Springdale, the town that borders Zion. The landscape that he explores is not just environmental, it's the human landscape of a place settled by Mormon pioneers a hundred fifty years ago.
One inspiration has been an elderly harmonica player, Larkin Gifford, who Bimstein recorded up until Gifford's death in 1998. These recordings form the backbone of Bimstein's composition, Larkin Gifford's Harmonica. Twenty-five years ago Western Folklife Center's Hal Cannon also met and recorded Larkin Gifford whose music defined that place.
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Piece Description
A dozen years ago, composer Phillip Bimstein settled at the foot of the sheer sandstone walls just outside Zion National Park in southern Utah. Ever since, he's been exploring that landscape for his musical inspiration. He has served two terms as mayor of Springdale, the town that borders Zion. The landscape that he explores is not just environmental, it's the human landscape of a place settled by Mormon pioneers a hundred fifty years ago. One inspiration has been an elderly harmonica player, Larkin Gifford, who Bimstein recorded up until Gifford's death in 1998. These recordings form the backbone of Bimstein's composition, Larkin Gifford's Harmonica. Twenty-five years ago Western Folklife Center's Hal Cannon also met and recorded Larkin Gifford whose music defined that place.
Broadcast History
Origincally broadcast April 8, 2001 on NPR's Weekend Edition.
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Tina Antolini
Posted on May 14, 2006 at 09:13 AM | Permalink
Review of Larkin Gifford's Harmonica
What could have been a simple story about a man composing a piece of music is made a much broader commentary about a place, a history, and how we memorialize people and times that have passed.
This piece delves into how music references place and time, and also provides insights into the act of composition, how new music can be formed from old sounds. It's also beautifully sewn together, in an intuitive way that doesn't follow the usual formula for radio reports. We follow the path of the music, its construction from old recordings to listening to it with various audiences, and thus hearing it through their ears.