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Pimento for solo violin (2024)
Commissioned by the University of Maryland
for Irina Muresanu
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Pimento also known as allspice is a dried unripe berry. Its tree Pimenta dioica is native to Jamaica, with its wood used for smoking meat and the berries having an intriguing flavor profile of cinnamon, nutmeg and clove, is used to season and add complexity to both sweet and savory cuisines.

 

A fitting title as it's meaning is twofold:

1. A play on the mento part of the word alluding to the Jamaican folk music called Mento. 

2. Mento music has been the catalyst and the blueprint (allspice) that flavored the new emerging musical forms of Jamaica at the time (i.e. reggae and dancehall) and now in my classical contemporary works at present.

 

Many of its idiosyncrasies become the kernels (berries) that permeate the piece. Their nature just like the allspice have the ability to provide both a sweetness and an edge. These include:

*Call and Response

*Repeated melodic Figurations and gestures

*Drumming sequences and syncopations

*Guitar strumming patterns

*Situational virtuosity in Repetition; enough to feel the conjuring of a rhythmic movement before interrupting, interjecting, a returning to, or moving away from.

 

Within this I also sought to capture the essence of some of the dance movements often associated with these rhythmic patterns.

© 2015-2022 Mikhail Johnson (Johno Muzik Publications).

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