Carrousel is a quartet for keyboards: Glockenspiel, Vibraphone, Marimba, and Piano. I think of this instrumentation as a way of “preparing” the piano part - not with bolts and rubber bits, but with three mallet instruments with different colours, ranges and sounds, surrounding the piano. My intention is that each keyboard create iterations of the piano’s momentum with reflective sparks that bounce from one instrument to the other to create something like the blur of double vision. The piece has open-ended references to spiral motion in time, nature, and sound. It suggests that, as we pivot around the sun, all bodies acquire a natural rhythm or pulse, tuned to the return of sunshine and darkness, captives of a solar carousel.

Performed by:
Haruka Fujii (marimba)
Rika Fujii (Glockenspiel)
Ryan Scott (vibraphone)
Gregory Oh (piano)

Commissioned by Soundstreams with generous support of the Canada Council for the Arts.