Awaken the Peace Within (Trio for Trumpet, Cello & Marimba)

We all struggle to find the inner peace of our soul. Our everyday struggle through the busy traffic of our lives makes it difficult to tap into this inner peace. This piece chronicles the challenge of our quest for quietness and calmness in our life.

Genre: Trio for Trumpet, Cello, & Marimba | # of Players: 3
Level: Medium Difficult | Duration: 10:20

Instrumentation
B-flat Trumpet
Cello
Marimba (5-octave)

Program Notes
We all struggle to find the inner peace of our soul. Our everyday struggle through the busy traffic of our lives makes it difficult to tap into this inner peace. This piece chronicles the challenge of our quest for quietness and calmness in our life.

Beginning very quietly, but apprehensive, the motive heard in the lower notes of the marimba reflect the “inner peace” featuring descending sixths and sevenths, repeated by the cello and trumpet. But the music begins to become busier with more motion and the inner peace becomes elusive only to be heard in the context of all the activity. A tremolo cello “E” interrupts the motion and the marimba states the peace motive again along with the cello as the cup-muted trumpet makes us aware of the turmoil of life with very fast gestures. It seems, however, that the inner peace may have been found as the cello sings a lovely line based on the peace motive above an arpeggiated accompaniment in the marimba. The calm is only short-lived as the fast-paced activity of life returns with cello and trumpet developing the peace motive and seguing into asymmetrical meter (7/8) and a contrapuntal texture. The peace motive attempts to rise out of the texture a couple times and eventually the music calms and slows into a lovely augmented version of the theme by the marimba. When it seems as if the inner peace has finally been found, the fury of life interrupts with greater force than before amid dissonant harmony, contrapuntal texture, and asymmetrical meter. Finally, the music slows and becomes quiet for the last time and the marimba plays a descending harmonic progression that leads to E major and the cello sings a new theme inspired by the peace motive. The theme is passed between cello and trumpet while the marimba plays sweeping arpeggiated passages underneath the texture. A short coda follows with the original peace motive returning in the marimba, cello, and trumpet, and coming to rest in A-major. Inner peace has been found.