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This is the world we know, the world of air and breathing and sun and beating hearts

Two Pianos and Two Listen Now Preview Score

Percussionists
$ CanAm Piano Duo
2009
50 min.
00:00 00:00

BUY SCORE AND PARTS

+
1. Nighthawks 10:29
2. Do You Know My Name? 8:07
3. Out Of The Blue 12:42
4. The Closer You Get The 6:22
Stranger The Stars
5. Let It Be 11:01

CanAm Piano Duo; Karen Beres &

Christopher Hahn, piano; Lance Drege &
David Steffens, percussion
On the album This is the World (2012)

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COMMERCIAL
RECORDINGS

Instrumentation Description
Pno-2 | Perc-2 This is the World is a set of largely interior tone poems for a two-piano, two-percussion ensemble. The
music is spacious and patient, with simple rhythms, slow harmonies, expansive and touching melodies,
and moments of ferocity, whimsy, and grandeur. Although old-time Chorale melodies play an important
% Percussion Details role in this music, the Nighthawks painting of Edward Hopper is foundational to the whole piece. This
painting from 1942 touches something enduring about the American heart and experience, specifically
% About part assignments an element of darkness, estrangement, and waiting which I wish to see brought forward and
transformed in our time. We are at the cusp of enormous change.

Movements Listing the work in programs

I. Nighthawks (after the painting by The full title is styled as follows: This is the world we know, the world of air and breathing and sun and
Edward Hopper) beating hearts. “This is the World” is the appropriate short form.
II. Do You Know My Name?
III. Out of the Blue
IV. The Closer You Get, the Stranger the
Stars Look… Program Note
V. Let It Be

The overall feeling of This is the World is one of quiet awe at the nature of our world, both the planet on
which we live, and the amazing web of life that it supports – not only that but its place, and our place in
Commissioned by the universal web of life, the jeweled “net of Indra.”

the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts at

the University of North Carolina School of the
Arts
Premiere
January 2010 by the CanAm Piano Duo
(Karen Beres and Christopher Hahn), and
percussionists Lance Drege and David
Steffens
The Nighthawks painting of Edward Hopper is his iconic contribution to American culture. It is one of my
favorite paintings. It captures something absolutely fundamental about the American experience, and
that is expressed probably more by the architecture of the picture – the amazing collection of shapes,
and the relationship of light to dark, especially the overwhelming darkness – than by the unspoken
“story” of the diner and the people in it. My music expresses some aspects of my own take on the
“story,” especially the hidden life in the blank windows of the building in the background, but my overall
composition is, as well, a parallel to Hopper’s lifelong preoccupation with shapes and light. He managed
to convey powerful unspoken human and universal elements though abstract forms.
% Read More

Further Reading
Interview with Tiffany Woods (2003)
5 September 2020 | 0 Comments

In May 2003, Tiffany Woods emailed David a series of questions in the course of writing a paper. She
was a student at the University of North Carolina Greensboro and taking a Band Literature course [...]

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 34, Julian Velasco’s Interview of Gary
Green
20 August 2020 | 0 Comments

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and
work. This week, we are excited to feature Julian Velasco's interview of
Gary Green from the Wharton Center in East Lansing, MI from October 24,
2017.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 33, John Floridis’s Interview of David
14 August 2020 | 0 Comments

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and
work. This week, we are excited to feature an episode from Montana Public
Radio's Musician's Spotlight featuring John Floridis interviewing David
about his music and background as a composer.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 32, Julian Velasco’s Interview of David –
Part 2
7 August 2020 | 0 Comments

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and
work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 2 of Julian Velasco's
interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 31, Julian Velasco’s Interview of David –
Part 1
30 July 2020 | 0 Comments

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and
work. This week, we are excited to feature Part 1 of Julian Velasco's
interview of David from his home in Missoula, MT in 2016.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 110, Images of Hell

27 July 2020 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David's works
that reference Hell: Hell's Gate, A Child's Garden of Dreams, and O Earth,
O Stars.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 29, David on Dreaming and the
Unconscious Mind
16 July 2020 | 0 Comments

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and
work. This week, we are excited to feature a speech David gave on matters
of dreaming and the unconscious mind before a performance of A Child's
Garden of Dreams by the James Madison University Wind Symphony.

From the Maslanka Archive – No. 15, A Child’s Garden of Dreams

9 April 2020 | 0 Comments

From the Maslanka Archive features media and stories of David's life and
work. This week, we are excited to feature pictures from David's residency
with Stephen K. Steele and the Illinois State University Wind Symphony for
a performance of A Child's Garden of Dreams in 2012.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 72, Life

5 November 2019 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

# music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s
compositions that focus on the spirit of life and living: Unending Stream of
Life, Traveler, and “Movement 4” from A Child's Garden of Dreams.
"
Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 69, Dream Space
15 October 2019 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s
compositions (of which there are literally dozens to choose from) that
explore a vast array of dream space: A Child's Garden of Dreams, Traveler,
and California.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 66, Vistas

23 September 2019 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s
compositions that emulate various kinds of vistas: Symphony No. 8, A
Child's Garden of Dreams, and Symphony No. 6.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 63, Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr.
3 September 2019 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s
compositions that Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr. and the University of
Massachusetts-Amherst Wind Ensemble championed: A Child's Garden of
Dreams, Symphony No. 4, and Tears.

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 48, Water Music

20 May 2019 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

music from around the web. This week, we continue to look at more of
David's music that uses water as a symbol or motif: A Child's Garden of
Dreams, Sea Dreams: Concerto for Two Horns and Wind Ensemble, and
UFO Dreams: Concerto for Euphonium and Wind Ensemble, Movement II - "The Water is Wide."

Maslanka Weekly: Best of the Web – No. 39, Dreams & Meditations
18 March 2019 | 0 Comments

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s

music from around the web. This week, we feature three compositions that
specifically mention "dreaming" or "meditation" in their title: A Child's
Garden of Dreams, Movement I, Sea Dreams: Concerto for Two Horns and
Wind Ensemble, Movement III, and Recitation Book, Movement I, "Broken Heart: Meditation on the
chorale melody Der du bist drei in einigkeit."

David Maslanka: Works for Younger Wind Ensembles

16 July 2015 | 0 Comments

Here are more than twenty works for wind ensemble, arranged in
approximate ascending order of difficulty, with commentary by David
Maslanka

The Nature of Consciousness: Correspondence

9 June 2015 | 0 Comments

We'd love to encourage you to write to David with questions or comments that you have about his
music. He loves hearing your thoughts and feelings. Get in touch on the Contact page. June 6, [...]

Recording the Wind Ensemble Music of David Maslanka

25 February 2015 | 0 Comments

Mark Morette of Mark Custom Recording shares his extensive experience

in recording wind ensembles.

Remarks before the premiere of A Child’s Garden of Dreams, Book 2

7 December 2008 | 0 Comments

Remarks made 7 December 2008 in Boone, NC before the premiere of A Child's Garden of Dreams,
Book 2, by the Appalachian Symphony Orchestra, James Allen Anderson, conductor. I'm not going to
say [...]

Some things that are true: Reflections on being an artist at the end of the 20th century
20 November 1998 | 0 Comments

Society of Composers Incorporated Region VIII Conference, University of Montana at Missoula. Keynote
address by David Maslanka – November 20, 1998 As soon as one speaks about “truth” there will be
objections. Since we live [...]

An Analytical Study of David Maslanka’s A Child’s Garden of Dreams

31 May 1994 | 0 Comments

The five movements of A Child's Garden of Dreams are inspired by five dreams selected from Carl
Jung's Man and His Symbols. Dr. David Booth's doctoral dissertation on A Child's Garden of
Dreams provides an analysis of each of the work's five [...]

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