Sextet in C's by Maria Thompson Corley: I Coadunation

Renaissance City Winds
Maria Thompson Corley, piano
Sextet in C’s was commissioned by Renaissance City Winds. The piece was completed in the late fall of 2022; I performed the world premiere with Renaissance City Winds on April 29, 2023 at the Manchester Craftmans Guild in Pittsburgh, PA. This piece was composed during a time of extreme polarization and omnipresent bad news. I considered depicting the overall tensions, but decided instead to write something to lighten the load.
The “C’s” in the title refers to the names of each movement. The definition of “coadunation” is creating a unified whole out of numerous disparate elements. In a way, a wind quintet embodies this idea, all by itself, however, I wanted to go further than that by constructing the first movement out of multiple musical motives, combinations of which form the basis for movements two and three. Sonata form seemed like a natural way to explore a conversation between various “points of view” that coalesce at the end. The development’s dissonance is meant to depict voices talking over each other, some saying pretty much the same thing, others, definitely not. By the end of the movement, however, the dissonance has yielded consonance, even though the motives retain their distinct identities. “Commiseration” means truly listening to, sharing, even validating the sorrows of another. The outer sections of the second movement are a funeral march in g minor, interrupted by a flowing, hopeful middle section in G major. “Co-motion” is a Caribbean-inflected dance, meant to evoke both my West Indian heritage and the joy of communal movement. After all, once we’ve hashed out our differences and listened to each other with empathy, what else is left but group celebration?