Biographical notes
Born in Toronto in 1972, Scott Good is a composer of
orchestral, chamber and vocal works that have been
successfully performed in North America. Also an
accomplished bass trombonist, he has studied at the
Eastman School of Music and the University of Toronto,
working with such teachers as Samuel Adler, Gary
Kulesha, Christos Hatzis, Chan Ka Nin, Joseph
Schwantner, and trombonists John Marcellus and Alain
Trudel. Scott Good has received numerous awards for his
music, including the Howard Hanson Orchestral Prize
(1995) and first prize at the Winnipeg New Music
Festival Composers Competition (1996). More recently, he
was awarded the John Weinzweig Prize (1999) and two
prizes in the SOCAN Awards for Young Composers
(2000-01). As a composer, he has written for a variety
of ensembles, among them the Winnipeg Symphony
Orchestra, the Hannaford Street Silver Band and the
Baroque ensemble I Furiosi, as well as for such soloists
as Dale Sorensen and John Farah. Scott Good’s music has
been commercially recorded by the Pax Christi Choir and
Université Laval’s Brass Quintet. As a trombonist, he
can be heard on recordings by the Trillium Brass
Quintet, which have been aired many times on CBC Radio. |
I am extremely honoured to have been chosen to compose the
compulsory piece for this year’s edition of the Montreal
International Musical Competition. Producing a work for this
kind of performance context presents a number of interesting
challenges for the composer. As the piece is intended for an
instrumental competition, it must be able to highlight the
virtuosity of the performer. Moreover, it should contain a
number of concepts of contemporary composition and of modern
approaches to violin technique. Lastly, as this work will be
heard many times, it is essential that it be engaging as much
for the performer as for the audience. I also wanted to compose
a work that offered maximum interpretive freedom to allow each
musician’s unique individuality to shine through. The title
comes from the penultimate line of Arnold Schoenberg’s seminal
work Pierrot lunaire, and was chosen at the beginning of the
writing process to serve as inspiration for the music.
