Off the Beaten Path (2025)
Concerto for Seven-String Electric Violin and Chamber Orchestra
Written for Chuck Bontrager
and the Illinois Modern Ensemble;
Stephen Andrew Taylor, co-director;
Carlos Carrillo, co-director
Premiered on April 2, 2025 by
Chuck Bontrager, violin,
and the Illinois Modern Ensemble,
conducted by Stephen Andrew Taylor,
in Smith Recital Hall,
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Duration: ca. 21 min.
Program Notes
Written for Chuck Bontrager and the Illinois Modern Ensemble, Off the Beaten Path is a concerto for seven-string electric violin and chamber orchestra that explores the genre of heavy metal. The first movement explores the development of heavy metal and its history. As the electric violin reacts to its surroundings in its journey to a darker, grittier, and more exciting musical soundscape, we are taken through several musical (baroque, blues, rock, new wave, and much more) and cultural influences (think 60s) that have helped shaped heavy metal. The second movement gives us the arrival of this journey as it establishes a metal ballad and the “power chord” (an interval of a perfect fifth with distortion that creates harmonic complexity that is essential in heavy metal). This then transitions into the third and final movement, fully in the rapid and bewildering style of heavy metal that is meant to bring the house down.
Instrumentation
1 Flute (doubling Piccolo)
1 Oboe
1 Clarinet in Bb (doubling Bass Clarinet)
1 Tenor Saxophone
1 Horn in F
1 Trumpet in Bb
1 Bass Trombone
1 Drum Set
1 Electric Guitar
1 Piano
Seven-String Electric Violin Soloist
2 Violins
1 Viola
1 Violoncello
1 Double Bass