Cool Stream (Duo for Piano andPercussion) - Programme Notes
                    (1996; 13':22")

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            My objective in composing Cool Stream (1997) was to write an organic, free-flowing work with no set form. I wanted to write music that felt like it was naturally following its own unique path, much like a mountain stream passing through many different terrains on its journey to the ocean. This, as well as the pervasive "cool" character to the work, is what gave me the idea for the title. I was also attracted by the idea of a stream as a metaphor for life. The sections in Cool Stream don’t usually have an obvious thematic connection to one another, but are related in mood. One reference to water in the music occurs in the section marked “Dreamy, hypnotic (ripples),” which features rippling (arpeggiated) piano figures, but perhaps the listener will find water-like associations in other sections as well.
            Cool Stream was commissioned by Bev Johnston and Barbara Pritchard, and premiered at The Music Gallery in Toronto in 1997 in a concert broadcast by CBC Radio's "Two New Hours."

©Clark Winslow Ross