Joel Love: Three Images (2016)

Joel Love (b. 1982)
Hailed as "extremely moving" by New Music Box and "especially sweet" by the Austin American Statesman, the music of Joel Love (b. 1982) explores an eclectic mix of genres, from short video pieces to works for chamber and large ensembles.
Joel’s works have been performed by a number of large and small ensembles, exhibited at art galleries, and screened at theaters and festivals around the world. Most recently, Solace: A Lyric Concerto has been performed many times by wind ensembles throughout the United States, including the Eastman Wind Ensemble, Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble, and The US Air Force Band in D.C., among others, and has been heard on international stages in Australia, Belgium, Costa Rica, Switzerland, and at the 2023 Festival Internacional de Saxofone de Palmela in Portugal. Recently, Joel was commissioned by the American Bandmaster’s Association to write In the Offing for wind ensemble, which he composed during his 2020-2021 Copland Residency Award.
As lover of popular music and film, Joel also enjoys writing for commercial music projects and creating arrangements and has composed music for several films and art installations, incidental music for a variety of settings, and also arranged for several ensembles. To close last year’s Library of Congress’ Stradivari Anniversary Concert, the Miró Quartet used Joel’s arrangement of “Silent Night” as a “sweetly turned encore” (WaPo). While finishing his doctorate, Joel was commissioned to write a work for string quartet, Lightscape, to accompany the opening of famed light artist James Turrell's Austin, TX Skyspace, The Color Inside. The Houston Chronicle commented that it "evocatively captures the emotion of The Color Inside."
Joel completed his D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Texas at Austin and holds degrees from The University of Houston's Moores School of Music (M.Music) and Lamar University’s Mary Morgan Department of Music (B.Music). He lives with his wife Amelia and son Dean in Houston, TX, where he holds a full-time professor of music post at Houston Community College.
Three Images (2016)
I. 0:09
II. 2:03
III. 6:15
These three movements all explore their own sound worlds. The first movement, “Spring” begins with three simple melodic movements, is through- composed, and is meant to depict a verdant springtime landscape in which people/animals are playing. “The Golden Hour” is a meditation on the image of the sun setting (or rising). In photography, the term “the golden hour” refers to the time just before and after sunrise/sunset, during which daylight is reddish and soft. Lastly, “Bed Monsters” is an unbridled rondo that is evocative of someone or something being chased by a predator. The title comes from my wife, Amelia, who thought it sounded like a monster lurking under the bed (from her childhood...).
I would like to extend my thanks to the Kenari and Barkada Quartets for commissioning and premiering this work and for all of their help editing it before the publication.
-Program Note by Composer
Instrumentation
For Saxophone Octet
Performer
Eastman Saxophone Project
Nicki Roman, soprano
Lauritz Eller, soprano
Erik Elmgren, alto
Ye Wang, alto
Harrison Clarke, tenor
Stephanie Venturino, tenor
Gabriel Piqué, baritone
Khanh Nguyen, baritone
Chien-Kwan Lin, director
Jonathan Wintringham, assistant director
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