Kimberly R. Osberg (photo: Mauricio Herrera)

In Kimberly R. Osberg’s recent blog post about her pieces recorded by Elizabeth Robinson and company, the composer writes about the inspiration for each movement with photos and score samples.

Here’s an excerpt:

The last movement, Cock Flight, was inspired by the powerful and aggressive Sumatra chickens. While modern day Sumatras are more docile, they use to be bred as fighting birds and—what really sparked my imagination—could fly for short distances.

When it comes to a flute fight, there’s nothing more fun than pitting piccolos against each other. While I was tempted to score the movement for four piccolos, a few things kept me from doing so. One important factor being that I was trying to keep each part such that they only had to double one other instrument (so the first and second players double piccolo, the third player doubles alto, and the fourth doubles bass), the other being that—due to the limited range of the piccolo—I wanted to make sure I could really capture the raw power of the chicken, and felt I needed a lower octave to do so. While I didn’t initially anticipate it, having two piccolos and two flutes also opened a lot more possibilities for trading lines back and forth; this helped to really make the punches land harder and keep them coming faster.

Read the rest of the post on Osberg’s website.

Listen to the album, Aviary by Elizabeth Robinson.