Concerto for Marimba & Orchestra

Ryan Elvert’s Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra is a compact, potent composition filled with plentiful tension and release, this piece represents the artist at his most vulnerable: each movement seems to represent an individual episode of the overcoming of adversity. The first movement, centered around B-minor and full of cadenza flourishes, brings forth an image of an oncoming storm, similar to being caught in a hurricane or earthquake. The energy dissipates into the second movement, centered around A-flat minor, turning from the inner storm to the outward loneliness of a night in a forest, surrounded only by a treeless landscape. With the sparse marimba texture, one can feel the black of night and hear the soft moonlight. The third movement, finally landing in the key of F- sharp minor, culminates the full circle nature of the piece. The exertion of the first and second movements finds its reprieve in a flurry of arpeggiated broken chords in the marimba and overlapping syncopations in the orchestra.