Wynwood Project Suite No.1 for Woodwind Quintet

Wynwood Project Suite No.1 for Woodwind Quintet

This is a new piece from our very own Dave Jarvis who is a fantastic musician.  I have know Dave for quite a few years.  When I made it to college in 1986, Dave was teaching at WSU, Washington state university.  I used to go and listen to him play with may groups.  he was an outstanding drummer in my eyes.  I always tried to emulate what he was doing on the drums in my own playing.  Watching him play the drums gave me  focus that I hadn’t felt before.  I worked very hard to try and garnish everything I could from his lessons (even though he didn’t know i was taking notes.) Later on, I was teaching in the town of Pullman, Washington and Dave wanted to take a sabbatical.  He reached out to me and asked if I would like to take over his students and duties at Washington State University.  I, of course said yes, and that was it.  I finished out the spring semester as an adjunct faculty at WSU.

The Wynwood Project Suite No.1

The Wynwood Project Suite No.1 was written for the Solstice Quintet. The title refers to the Wynwood Art District, a northern suburb of Miami, Florida that is home to over 70 galleries, museums and art collections, including the Wynwood Walls, an outdoor permanent exhibit featuring hundreds of graffiti murals from some of the world’s most renowned street artists.  This first suite is a collection of short musical impressions of five of these graffiti murals.  Aliens Are Coming is a black and white mural that depicts a large group of humorous extraterrestrials marching down the street.  Lizard is a huge iguana painted on the entire side of a building.  The 3D effect is quite stunning, as the reptile seems to be crawling off of the building.  Hamburger Man and the Tree People is a collection of humorous, surreal circus-like people hanging like fruit off of trees. The mural encompasses the entire building giving the onlooker the feeling of watching a circus parade pass by.  Angel of Harmony and Child is a stunning mural of an angel playing a medieval double recorder to a child.  It portrays a sense of peace and innocence to the viewer.  Blue Man is a nightmarish scene of steel blue colors with sharp sword-like edges.  It combines a feeling of confrontation, panic and turmoil. The suite has been numbered (the first) because the project intends to be an ongoing compositional endeavor of musical caricatures that will be composed for other instrumental settings such as brass quintet and percussion quartet.

About the Composer

David Jarvis is a Professor of Music, Composer and the Coordinator of Percussion Studies at Washington State University and has performed internationally in both classical and jazz arenas. He is a member of Jazz Northwest, Nighthawk and Gator Tail (WSU Faculty Jazz Groups) and has traveled around the country giving workshops and clinics in both classical and jazz performance.  He was principal timpanist with the Washington-Idaho Symphony for over 20 years and principal percussionist for the Oregon Coast Music Festival Orchestra for over 14 years. He is the co-founder of the popular jazz group, the Dozier-Jarvis Trio in addition to co-member of the Jarvis-Hagelganz Quartet and trumpet/percussion duo, Cameradschaft. He specializes in solo literature written for percussion and electronic sound. Prof. Jarvis is a member of the Percussive Arts Society, MENC, and an artist/clinician for the Yamaha Corporation.  His compositions are published by Lauren Keiser Music Publishing (formally known as Southern Music Co.), Honeyrock Publishing Company, C. Alan Publications, Activist Music and Audible Intelligence Music.