June Dances  

for flute, oboe, clarinet, and piano

Score in C August 2011

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SEAN MICHAEL SALAMON June Dances for flute, oboe, clarinet, and piano No. 1: The Village (Forlane) No. 2: Larry Kramer’s Play (Sarabande) No. 3: The Joy (Tambourin) FROM THE COMPOSER

June Dances is a trio of baroque dances which recall scenes and emotions I witnessed and felt in New York City during Gay Pride Month of 2011. The final movement uses themes by Bartók and Mahler as major material.

The opening dance depicts a stroll down Christopher Street on a summer’s evening, and we experience the sights, smells, and sounds: the chattering of cheerful people, a whiff of curry, and the sight of shops benign and not-so-benign. Before long, we wander into Christopher Park to sit down and enjoy l’heure bleue.

The sarabande is a meditation on The Normal Heart, a play by Larry Kramer which chronicles the outbreak of AIDS in the United States, and which played in New York in June.

The final dance illustrates the anticipation right before the Gay Pride March, and then, the unbridled joy as Governor Cuomo walks down the street, flanked by Council Speaker Quinn and Mayor Bloomberg. Thousands of joyous men and women clamber over police barriers to catch a glimpse of their hero, Andrew Cuomo, marching down Fifth Avenue. On this day, we are all New Yorkers.

Performers should endeavor to play the set with as little pause between movements as possible. At the end of the forlane, the piano should ring until the entrance of the clarinet at m. 1 of the sarabande.

—Sean Michael Salamon

June Dances was premiered on November 12, 2011 by Sarah Steranka, flute; Andrew Dotterer, oboe; Katie Russell, clarinet; and Stephen Murphy, piano. It has since been performed in Singapore and Thailand by the Sawasdee Woodwind Quintet, and in Essex and Sussex, England by the Bryony Ensemble.

©2014 Sean Michael Salamon. If you plan to perform this work, contact the composer at sean.michael.salamon@gmail.com.

Sean Michael Salamon's music has been performed by numerous ensembles throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Spain, Chile, England, Scotland, Iceland, Germany, Romania, Lithuania, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. He is the founder of early/new music vocal ensemble Ping (pingvoices.com), the music director for the CMU Originals (cmuoriginals.org), and the baritone choral scholar at Trinity Cathedral in downtown Pittsburgh. He studies music composition with Reza Vali at Carnegie Mellon University, having previously studied composition with Nancy Galbraith, and conducting with Robert Page.

Browse his scores online at IMSLP and listen on Soundcloud.