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sundowning-iiDownload

Sundowning II by Lily Chen was written for Keyed Kontraptions in 2018. She based the subject matter on her own personal experience with her grandmother, and the changes that occured with her dimentia. Here is an excerpt from the forward of the piece:

“Sundowning is a neurological phenomenon most commonly seen in sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease. Patients with sundowning usually begin to show behavioral problems after the sun sets. Sometimes they get agitated, restless, or even aggressive; sometimes they suffer from auditory hallucination, illusion, or even delusional disorder. Such syndrome visited my aged grandmother, which put her in a state of mood swings, mental confusion, and cognitive disorder. I found her physical functions obviously degenerating; she even lost her sense of hearing the week before her death.”

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I did an experiment on a bassoon recently, I painted it! In the beginning of the quarantine I bought a plastic tenoroon from China, it plays well for what it is. I thought I would use it more in arrangements but then it would make the arrangement less accessible for people without a mini bassoon.

I painted it with a matte lilac spray paint and it came out great, so I decided to do my Linton bassoon also. My Linton sits in my closet now that I don’t teach, and I use it for outdoor evening gigs. For the Linton I used a darker lilac satin spray paint and the resulting finish has a bit more shine to it.

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“Largo al factotum” from the Barber of Seville, this is one of the six arias from the opera that have been set as a bassoon duet. The first time I played this was at a fiend’s bassoon recital. This is a flashy aria, but the others are more lyrical and all of them are comical!

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One of my chamber groups, Keyed Kontraptions has started the season. This season is different due to the Covid outbreak, and so we have moved everything online. We are going to be releasing videos and online concerts performances in the next few months.

We are starting with a favorite piece of ours which is titled ‘Tapas’ by Marc Mellits. This is an eight movement work which is completely modular. The movements can be played in any order or just a few of them can be selected. This is a great way to build a program since we can use movements of this as an opening piece or as the closer. This piece was originally a string quartet which Marc arranged for soprano sax, clarinet, and bassoon trio.

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Here is an arrangement of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide Overture.

I had the opportunity to play a run of the entire prediction a few years ago. It was a reduced version and from my vantage point in the pit I could watch the whole show as it was going on, so I had a lot of fun. Throughout the comic operetta the characters individually going through harrowing ordeals that end up turning out for the better, with each of them better off than they began. The over arching message of the show is “We live in the best of all possible worlds”

PDF to the Score is here Candide Bassoons

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I arranged the first movement of Widor’s Organ Symphony for 4 bassoons and 2 contrabassoons. This piece has been a favorite of mine for a long time and I always wanted to do an arrangement but it didn’t seem possible. I finally got around to doing it and I think it turned out pretty good.

The first bassoon. part has high F, F# and G so it would be good to have a high note setup to play the Bassoon 1 part. Here is the PDF of the score and parts.

Widor Organ Symphony 5 Bassoons PDF