Common Sense: REYNOLDS

After years of travelling with her Air Force family around the United States Belinda Reynolds now considers herself an 'adopted native' of California. She completed her Doctorate in Music at Yale University with Jonathan Berger, Martin Bresnick and Jacob Druckman, and received her M.A. and B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied principally with Andrew Imbrie and John Thow. Ms. Reynolds has worked with a number of performing organizations throughout North America and Europe, including Continuum Contemporary Music (Toronto), Da Capo Players, ELECTRA, Essential Music, WIREWORKS, New Music Consort, and Earplay. She has received various professional recognition for her work, including grants and awards from ASCAP, the Mary Flagler Charitable Trust, the International League of Women Composers, and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

Find out more about Belinda at
http://www.belindareynolds.com

Over and Out
Excerpt from Common Sense

"Fifths and canons: two long-standing elements in music. In Over and Out, I try to put a different aural perspective onto both of these structures. Using canons, I overlay different collections of fifths to create the melodies and harmonies that pervade this short work. Before you know it, the piece is over and out."

Circa
Excerpt from The Shock of the Old

"I chose CIRCA for the title of this piece for a number of reasons. First, the term, circa, literally means 'around'. In Early Music circles, this term is often used because the exact dates of many compositions are not known. In my piece, I use this title to refer to the way the opening weaves its harmonic and motivic structure around the entire body of the work. It acts as a nebulous 'musical cloud', from which the subsequent sections derive both their harmonic and melodic structures. The title also alludes to how the opening affects the overall structure of the piece, by returning in an altered form to complete the work. Special thanks goes to American Baroque for their invaluable input in creating this piece."

dan BECKER