Hear unique guitar work at Figge for free
- Oops!Something went wrong.Please try again later.
James Romig, a composer at Western Illinois University, will present a new hour-long work for electric guitar this Sunday, March 3, at 1 p.m. at the Figge Art Museum.
“The Fragility of Time” is a 58-minute work for solo electric guitar commissioned by Matt Sargent and completed in 2022. The performance will take place in the Figge lobby (225 W. 2nd St., Davenport), with free admission.
The guitar piece is scored for electric guitar without distortion or other electronic effects. “The guitar will have a gently pure, ringing, tone,” Romig said Thursday.
The piece has a structure similar to the gears of a mechanical clock: three slow-moving lines of music, each moving at a slightly different speed, unfold simultaneously, and the cycles return to where they began, he said.
The three lines are individuated only in Romig’s sketchwork for the piece.
“Once the piece became real music, I incorporated all three lines into a single one. Though the score Matt plays from is only a single line, it is made up of a combination of the three,” the composer said.
Matt Sargent is a composer, guitarist, recording engineer, and music technologist based in upstate New York, where he is an assistant professor of music at Bard College.
“The Fragility of Time” is Romig’s second large-scale work for electric guitar. The first, titled “The Complexity of Distance,” was written for and recorded (for New World Records) by Mike Scheidt, guitarist for the venerable doom metal band YOB. That work calls for heavy amplification, distortion, and feedback.
“The Fragility of Time,” its much quieter companion piece, was written for Sargent, who has recorded the work for A Wave Press. It will be released in summer 2024.
His performance on Sunday will be the third public performance of the work (the first two were at Bard College and William Paterson University), and the first in a museum setting.
This is the third of Romig’s extended-length compositions that have been performed at The Figge. “Still,” for solo piano, was performed by Knox College professor Ashlee Mack in 2018 (the piece went on to be a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2019); “Spaces,” for solo vibraphone, was performed by Augustana professor Tony Oliver in 2022.
Critics have described his work as “rapturous, slow-moving beauty” (San Francisco Chronicle), “developing with the naturalness of breathing” (The New Yorker), and “profoundly meditative… haunting” (The Wire).
Romig is a two-time Copland House award recipient and has served as artist-in-residence at national parks including Everglades, Grand Canyon, and Petrified Forest. Guest composer presentations include visits to the Eastman School of Music, the Cincinnati Conservatory, SUNY Buffalo, the Clyfford Still Museum, and the American Academy in Rome.
For more information, visit his website HERE.
For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WHBF - OurQuadCities.com.
