Exploding Carousels for Flute, Clarinet and Cello (1999)
by Donnie
Ashworth
Donnie Ashworth is a composer/flautist with the Birmingham, Alabama
contemporary music consortium BAMA (Birmingham Art Music Alliance). Rusty
and Christy Banks participated in this group while residing in Birmingham,
and occasionally return to the area for performances. The New Music
Agency will be bringing to Lincoln several works by these musicians from the
Deep South. Already, Rusty has performed a guitar work on our June 26th concert
by BAMA composer Charles Norman Mason (Mirrors, Stones and Cotton) and
we will be performing other works by composers from BAMA this fall.
While Rusty reports that the city of Birmingham embraces performances of
contemporary music, the occasional work is out there that perhaps doesn't
quite capture the imagination of a particular arts review. The following
comments about the work "Exploding Carousels" appeared in a concert review
published in the Birmingham (AL) News:
Ashworth's "Exploding Carousels" opened the program at the Alabama School
of Fine Arts. A self-absorbed trio for clarinet, flute and cello, inspired
by unpleasant childhood memories, its ear-splitting dissonances and steady
pulsations were more annoying than cathartic and, thankfully, short.