Big Sur Suite for Marimba and String Orchestra by Doug Wallace - AYSE Live 05.14.23

Big Sur Suite for Marimba and String Orchestra by Doug Wallace
American Youth String Ensemble
Laura Wallace, Conductor
Parker Joy Fadoul, Soloist

Big Sur Suite for Marimba and String Orchestra is generally about the natural beauty of Big Sur, California, but also pays homage to three of the main performers who made the area famous for folk music with their performances at the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival - Joan Baez, The Beach Boys, and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.  The three movements are as follows:

I. Morning Fog - I attempted to capture the beauty of morning fog along the coast of California with an arpeggiated progression in the low end of the marimba (very much like a Bach cello suite), veiled by a mysterious adagio in the strings.  This veiled section opens up into a Vaughan-Williams inspired song of the deep sea followed by the parting of the fog and a quote from the Beach Boys California-Saga (Big Sur), written by Mike Love in 1973.  This quote is short lived, however, and the fog returns to end the movement.

II. Coastal Redwoods - A marimba solo with big, deep chords opens this movement, immediately invoking the quality of large redwoods.  Following this solo, a minimalist ostinato then begins that is a deconstruction of chordal and melodic material from Helplessly Hoping by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, a song that was performed at the 1969 Big Sur Folk Festival.  It is very difficult to connect this deconstruction to the original song until one brief moment at the climax where the song is directly quoted and then fades into the distance.  The second movement ends just as it began with a deep, chordal marimba solo.

III. Highway One - Highway one is a trip down the Highway alongside Big Sur, California.  This Holst-inspired gigue quotes and deconstructs material from the traditional folk song Sweet Sir Galahad, which Joan Baez first performed at Big Sur in 1968, a year before the festival became famous.   This is a fun, melodic and light movement until halfway through when all of the previous themes start to layer together and build toward a climax.  I like to think of this as the spirit of Bach, The Beach Boys, Phillip Glass, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, Vaughan-Williams, Holst, and Joan Baez all coming together to express the beauty of Big Sur in their own way.  The climax of this movement goes back to the basics and presents the melodic theme in its purist form, eventually racing to the end with a CODA of marimba flourishes to conclude the piece.

Big Sur Suite for Marimba and String Orchestra is written for, and dedicated to, my beautiful wife Laura. Thank you for your boundless support in both music and life.