Esperanza Stephen Dunstone

Esperanza For Intermediate 3-part harp ensemble Please click the "About this work & Performance Notes" heading below for further details This book is supplied as a score and set of 7 parts   Buy this music now £11.00 +p&p

Artist Profile and catalogue of works - Stephen Dunstone

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Esperanza

There areseven parts as follows::-

Harp 1
Harp 2
Harp 3
High Harmony
Low Harmony
Melody
3 x Optional extra verse (1 copy for each harp part)

 

The night before I wrote this piece, I was at a friend’s 60th birthday party, and getting anxious that I still hadn’t come up with some Latin American music for an imminent harp workshop. I got to bed very late but woke up far too early and couldn’t go back to sleep. So to use the time profitably (without actually having to get out of bed, which seemed a bit excessive) I started mulling over musical possibilities. Inspiration must have been hovering around somewhere, because while I lay there, the whole of this melody wafted into my head. The down side of this was that I couldn’t afford to go back to sleep again in case I dreamed about waltzing pandas and woke up having forgotten everything about this new piece, so by the end of the day I did feel a bit zombified.

A couple of days later (and still without a suitable title for the piece), I was listening to some very cheerful Cuban music, which had a similar kind of bright, hopeful feel to it. That clinched the title: Esperanza is a place not only in Cuba but also in lots of Latin American countries, and it means “Hope” in Spanish.

I’ve shared out both the melody and the harmony parts throughout the score, so everything is pretty well equally distributed, and there’s no hierarchy within the ensemble. So the terms “Harp 1”, “Harp 2” and “Harp 3” aren’t in any way indications of levels of experience. However... I’ve also provided parts that are just “Melody”, “Low Harmony” and “High Harmony”, in case there are groups or individuals who want to stick to one thing more consistently.

You’ll see that I’ve included a lot of interweaving clapping and a bit of heelstamping. Obviously the heel-stamping will only work with the right kind of heels on the right kind of floor. So if you’re performing wearing soft shoes, or the floor’s covered in carpet, just drum on the soundboard instead.

I found myself very drawn to the percussive element here, so I included an optional extra verse with just clapping and heel-stamping.

Title:	Esperanza
Composer:	Stephen Dunstone
Instrumentation:	3 Lever or Pedal Harps
Level:	Intermediate
Format:	A4 stapled score and set of 7 A4 parts
Weight:	205gm
ISMN:	9790570464463
Our Ref:	SD1011
Publisher:	Creighton's Collection
Printer/Distributor:	Creighton's Collection
Edition/Year:	2024
Origin:	UK