Indigo Street by Tom Schnauber

This work, a small tone poem of sorts for orchestra, attempts to recreate musically some of what Swiss author Nicolas Bouvier describes in his book The Scorpionfish. He was stranded in Sri Lanka and lived on Indigo Street. From there he could see and hear the sights and sounds of the strange, almost magical native culture, vibrant among the remnants of Dutch imperialism, all awash in intense heat and the constant buzz of insects. In one passage, he describes with almost obsessive detail a battle between termites and ants; a small-scale conflict on a cracked slab of asphalt magnified to huge dimensions and exploding with fierce martial imagery. Also, throughout his stay, he finds himself drawn to a run-down Catholic church, overgrown with vines, and to the old Padre who still inhabits it. There are many nights on which the author takes comfort in talking to this kind, wizened man. And by the time he discovers that this one contact to his old world has actually been dead for years, the fact that he has been conversing with a ghost all this time hardly seems surprising.

Performed by the Columbia Orchestra, conducted by Jason Love