[#293] March 03, 2025
2015 | Chamber Winds | Grade 5 | 5’ - 10’ | Suite
Masks and Machines by American composer and music educator Paul Dooley is our Composition of the Week.
Masks and Machines exists in two versions, the original version for full ensemble and a chamber instrumentation version for 19 players.
The work was commissioned by a consortium of wind bands organized by Timothy Shade in honor of Gary Green's retirement from the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. It was premiered on March 3, 2015, by the University of Miami Frost Wind Ensemble under Gary Green.
The chamber version was written during the summer of 2020 and premiered that same year by The United States Navy Band, at the 2020 Midwest Clinic (virtual performance), under Captain Kenneth Collins.
“Masks and Machines is inspired by the early twentieth century works of Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer, and the Neoclassical music of Igor Stravinsky. I admire the simplicity of shapes and color in Schlemmer's works such as the Bauhaus Stairway and Triadic Ballet as well as the renaissance and baroque musical influences in Stravinsky's Pulcinella. Masks and Machines contains three contrasting character pieces featuring renaissance brass music, Baroque fortspinnung in virtuosic mallet percussion, lush oboe, clarinet and bassoon solos, and machine-like flute rips.”
Program notes by Paul Dooley
Masks and Machines was the co-winner of the National Bandmasters Association/William Revelli Award in 2015, as well as the winner of the American Bandmasters Association Ostwald Award, in 2016.
The original version is scored for:
3 Flutes (3rd doubling Piccolo), Oboe, English Horn, Eb Clarinet, 3 Bb Clarinets, Bb Bass Clarinet, Bb Contrabass Clarinet, 2 Bassoons, Contrabassoon; Soprano Sax, Alto Sax, Tenor Sax, Baritone Sax; 3 C Trumpets, 4 F Horns, 2 Tenor Trombones, Bass Trombone, Euphonium, Tuba; Timpani + 6 percussion; Harp, Celesta; Contrabass.
The chamber version is scored for:
Flute, Oboe, Eb Clarinet, Bb Clarinet, Bb Bass Clarinet, Bassoon; Bb Soprano Saxophone, Eb Alto Saxophone, Bb Tenor Saxophone, Eb Baritone Saxophone; C or Bb Trumpet, F Horn, Tenor Trombone, Tuba; Timpani, Percussion (3 players); Celesta (or Piano)
Both versions are available in rental directly from the composer.
Dr. Paul Dooley earned a degree in music composition, and a second bachelors degree in mathematics, at the University of Southern California, where his mentors included Frank Ticheli, Stephen Hartke and Frederick Lesemann. Dooley completed a master's and a doctorate in composition at the University of Michigan, where he worked primarily with composers Michael Daugherty, Bright Sheng and Evan Chambers.
Paul Dooley is one of the most prolific and performed composers in America today. His path has embraced not only his Western Classical heritage, but also a cross-cultural range of contemporary music, dance, art, technology and the interactions between the human and natural worlds.
In 2013 Dooley joined the music faculty at the University of Michigan. He is the founder and the director of the Performing Arts Technology department’s annual Computer Music Showcase. He also co-directed the Midwest Composers Symposium and was coordinator of the “ONCE. MORE.” festival, a celebration of the 50-year anniversary of the ONCE Festival of Contemporary Music and was co-awarded a grant from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching.
Dooley is a frequent guest of professional orchestras, university wind ensembles and festivals in the United States and around the world. His works have been performed in significant venues including Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Royce Hall, and Chicago’s Symphony Center, and featured on several episodes of NPR’s “Performance Today” with Fred Child.
Other works for winds include:
· Point Blank (2010)
· Coast of Dreams (2014)
· Mondrian’s Studio (2019)
· Manifestos (2019)
· Canticles (2022)
· Moonlight Muse (2023)
· Boom Goes the Dynamite (2023)
· Lovestruck (2024)
more on Paul Dooley