Keith Fitch (b. 1966) Totem (1993) CIM Orchestra Timothy Muffitt, guest conductor performed on February 12, 2020 --- About the Composer Keith Fitch currently heads the composition department and holds the Vincent K. and Edith H. Smith Chair in Composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he also directs the CIM New Music Ensemble. Called “gloriously luminous” by The Philadelphia Inquirer, his music has been consistently noted for its eloquence, expressivity, dramatic sense of musical narrative and unique sense of color and sonority. His works have been performed throughout the United States, Europe and Asia by such ensembles and soloists as The Philadelphia Orchestra, American Composers Orchestra, League of Composers Orchestra, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Da Capo Chamber Players, harp/guitar duo of Yolanda Kondonassis and Jason Vieaux, and many others. A native of Indiana, Fitch began composing at age 7 and began formal musical training on the double bass at age 11. At age 16, he received his first professional orchestral performance. He attended the Indiana University School of Music, where he studied composition with Frederick Fox, Eugene O’Brien and Claude Baker; double bass with Bruce Bransby and Murray Grodner; and chamber music with Rostislav Dubinsky, founder of the Borodin Quartet. He also counts Donald Erb and Joan Tower among his compositional mentors. Among his many awards are three each from ASCAP and National Society of Arts and Letters, Indiana Arts Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, Fromm Music Foundation, two Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council, a Copland House Residency Award and the 2016 Walter Hinrichsen Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has enjoyed multiple residencies at the MacDowell Colony and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as at Yaddo, The Charles Ives Center for American Music and Atlantic Center for the Arts. He frequently appears as guest composer at universities, colleges and summer festivals nationwide. His music is published by Non Sequitur Music and Edition Peters and appears on Azica Records and Naxos Digital. He joined the CIM faculty in 2008. --- About the Music TOTEM was composed during the summer of 1993 on a commission from the New York Youth Symphony through its First Music 10 competition. The work is in one movement, divided into three sections, with a total duration of about ten minutes. The title refers to various aspects of the work and its history: the dark, ritualistic nature of the music, very loosely inspired by Jackson Pollock’s 1947 painting, Full Fathom Five, the use of a ascending (or climbing) figure throughout much of the piece, and, on a more personal note, the place of the work in my compositional career. TOTEM was the last orchestral work I wrote while studying with my primary teacher and mentor, Frederick Fox, long-time chairman of the composition department at Indiana University and a remarkable composer and educator. If a traditional meaning of a totem is that of a reminder of a tribe’s ancestry and heritage, then this work may serve as a marker of the time I spent with this singular musician who influenced so much of my musical thinking. In fact, the opening melodic line and its unusual scoring (piccolo, oboe, English horn in octaves) is a direct homage to Fred’s own work, NIGHT CEREMONIES, where a similar gesture opens the second movement. The structure and form of the work are straightforward. The work opens quietly with a plaintive melody in the winds above a subtly shifting, coloristic cushion of sound. This line continually spins out of itself and supplies much of the melodic and harmonic material used throughout the entire work. Three solo strings eventually take over the line, and, through a long crescendo and the return of the winds, lead to the first climax of the piece. As this climax fades, the tempo changes and the violins introduce a running sixteenth-note figure which drives much of the second (and longest) section of the piece. This gesture climbs through the orchestra until the music abruptly shifts register, and the low strings begin a long, snake-like return to the upper reaches of the orchestra. Complex, imitative brass fanfares announce faster tempi and more dramatic gestures until the work reaches its final, thunderous climax. The opening music returns in the third, coda-like section, the original motive now fragmented between solo viola, alto flute and English horn over a quiet background of percussion, harp and celesta. The work ends much as it began, two flutes fading into silence. TOTEM was premiered at Carnegie Hall by the New York Youth Symphony, Miquel Harth-Bedoya conducting, in 1994. TOTEM was also selected by Wolfgang Sawallisch as one of three new pieces to celebrate the centennial of The Philadelphia Orchestra in 2000. Keith Fitch