Fantasia Parachicos was composed as part of the Meet The Composer Residency which placed me with the Kansas City Symphony, the State Ballet of Missouri, and the Paseo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts (the Arts Magnet School in the Kansas City, Missouri School District) for the period of 1994-97. When the Residency was awarded, Meet The Composer requested a "kickoff event" to mark the start of the residency -- one which would unite all three organizations and which would have significant community visibility. I had already been planning to write a large concerto for Laurence Kaptain and the Marimba Yajalon ensemble with full orchestra in the third year of the residency, and when guest conductor Harvey Felder chose a multi-cultural format for his series of school concerts for the Kansas City Symphony's 1994-95 season, the choice for the kickoff event became clear.

We decided to use an ethnic Mexican folk tune as the basis for a short piece which would combine the ethnic sound of the Chiapan Marimba, the string section of the orchestra (written for a high school-level ensemble), and the talents of two dancers from the State Ballet of Missouri in a dance choreographed by former Associate Artistic Director Bart Cook. Fantasia Parachicos is a single-movement work based on the Chiapan folk tune " El Parachicos" which, like many ethnic Mexican tunes, makes quite a game out of the division of the six eights of a 3/4 or 6/8 measure. In addition to borrowing most parts of the tune, I made the ambiguity of the metric structure a building block for the work. The opening string solo is written in 3/4 but will most likely be "heard" in 3/2. Similarly, areas of the marimba solo sections and the sections which combine Marimba and strings often have multiple division patterns occurring simultaneously. One of the best examples occurs where the lead marimba parts have a tune that can be heard easily in either 6/8 or 3/4 (though the notation is in 6/8), while the 4th marimba part is clearly in 3/4 and the strings are clearly in 6/8. When this melody returns, the ambiguity worsens as Marimba 4 plays its bass notes on the 2nd and 5th eighth notes (!).

Program notes by James Mobberley

About the Composer

James Mobberley is currently Professor of Music and Director of Music Production and Computer Technology (M-PACT) Center at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Conservatory of Music. Since 1991, he has been the Kansas City Symphony's Composer-in-Residence, advising Music Director William McLaughlin on selection of new scores for performance by the orchestra. Awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Rome Prize Fellowship, a Composer's Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Lee Ettelson Composers Award. He has received commissions from the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition, the St. Louis Symphony, the Kansas City Symphony, the SUNY-Stony Brook Contemporary Music Ensemble, and numerous others.