UnderTow

John Mackey was born on October 1, 1973 in Westerville, Ohio. He was never

provided with music lessons from his parents. His grandparents taught him how to read

music and introduced him to digital music. John composed music for his own enjoyment

instead of education. Later on, he wrote his first piece called Lacrimosa at the age of 11.

What inspired him to compose his first piece was the film Amadeus. John also had some

help from his mother’s friends. His mother has a Ph.D. in music. He later on graduated

from Westerville South High. He also got his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1995 from

the Cleveland Institute of Music. He then received a Master of Music degree in 1997.

Undertow is the first of Mackey's works written specifically for intermediate

bands. Undertow was commissioned by the Hill Country Middle School Wind Ensemble

and was premiered by the same ensemble with its conductor, Cheryl Floyd, in May

2008.The work is so much more different than much of Mackey’s work in terms of

technical difficulty, but a lot of the characteristic elements of his writing are there. They

include biting semitone dissonance within a tonal context, frequent use of mixed uses of

the time signature, perhaps most importantly to this work, and repetitive rhythmic

patterns. The time signature pattern for the piece is an alternation of 7/8 and 4/4 time,

which provides an agitated out-of-step pulsation throughout.