Update Title: 28E0336F-FA00-43AE-9B5D-35EE381D9516

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Extant began its life in 1996 as a three-minute tenth birthday present for XTET.  Beyond the punning nature of the title, I had been thinking about how lovely and relatively uncommon the bassoon is as a soloist with a new music group.  I had also been thinking with a certain sadness about how remarkable it is these days that any new music group lasts ten years in this country's artistic climate.  So, here we are; unlike the dodo bird, we are extant.  The chance to expand this piece came from David Stock and the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, still extant after more than twenty years.

The first movement (of two) is an extended adagio.  Here the mood is melancholy and elegiac, though the bassoon is passionate in its lyricism.  The second movement is more kaleidoscopic, generally fast and aggressive.  The bassoon seeems to be saying that yes we are extant and yes we intend to stir things up for quite awhile longer.  The final section, still fast, slows down near the end as it returns to the bell sounds of the opening movement.

I wrote the piece for John Steinmetz, and we met several times during the course of Extant's composition for the sharing of ideas about technical and artistic matters.  It has been a most enjoyable collaboration.  Complete in 1997, Extant was commissioned for the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition. --Donald Crockett

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