Instrumentation:
Large melodica ensemble
- 4 melodica soloists
- melodica chorus
- 1 gavel
Description: Did your family have Family Council Meetings growing up? If not, I'll elucidate: A family council meeting is essentially a formally-structured gathering of members of a household. Roles and procedures typical to community councils and other organized bodies are followed (i.e. presence of elected officers, the symbolic taking of minutes, and official adjournment). In the meeting, orders of business are discussed, each attendee contributes an educational segment, and a patriarch pontificates. A family council meeting is an advent of totalitarianism disguised as a democracy, with the primary aim of encouraging fervent family commitment and domesticating rogue youth citizens of the household. This composition is about that.
This piece is about family dynamics and family governments. It yearns for multiplicity of sound. The inherent lack of layperson melodica rigor and instrumental construction standards also lends itself well to the inevitable family friction that results even when players or people "play the same note."