En Passant (2017) by Brent A. Morden published on 2017-12-12T14:25:20Z En Passant for trumpet, trombone, bass clarinet, and two chess players was written for the Columbia University undergraduate composition seminar under Zosha di Castri. Performed live on December 10, 2017 by members of loadbang (Andy Kozar, William Lang, and Carlos Cordeiro). In this piece, I effectively scored a chess game. Two chess players physically play out a game on an on-stage chess board and announce their moves, which cue the instrumentalists to play responding musical gestures. Program note: "Whenever you play a game, don’t you sometimes fantasize about having epic music play alongside? Music that reflects the dramatic arc of the game in real time? I do. So, I wrote a piece to explore that idea. Three instrumentalists. Two chess players. One game. Who will triumph? Find out in tonight’s thrilling installment of En Passant! Featuring Brent A. Morden and David Acevedo on chess. Special thanks to Zosha di Castri, Mary Kouyoumdjian, and David Bird." Genre Contemporary Classical
