Round 7:30 mashes up the modality of Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata IV with the melody from ’Round Midnight. Opening in the imitative contrapuntal style of a traditional Renaissance ricercar, it builds to a tattoo which foreshadows Musica Ricercata VIII.

This short piece was commissioned by Kevin Noe for a Musique21 event which used Ligeti’s masterpiece ”as the point of departure for a ritual celebration of life’s simple building blocks”. My contribution was meant to be played between movements VII and VIII of Musica Ricercata, and clocks featured heavily in Kevin’s staging, so the title ’Round 7:30 suggested itself almost immediately.

Once I had that title, I knew I must include an homage to ’Round Midnight, which is quoted, quite nearly verbatim, as the subject of the opening canon. I dropped the leading apostrophe in the title once it was clear that Round 7:30 was going to be strictly imitative. In fact, the canon (at the unison/octave) is so exact for the first half, and the homophony so consistent in the second, that I’ve considered “arranging” it for one flute, one clarinet, and live-processed electronics. Perhaps one day some enterprising pair of performers will take up that challenge…