Alan Chan
Floes (2004)
Vibraphone
“Floes” was awarded second place in the PAS Percussion Composition Contest in 2004. This piece was inspired by images of ice, yet the music itself is not static. The suspended harmonies and free flowing meter seem to depict water in a state of transition; freezing, melting, and “floeing.” Listening to the piece may evoke the image of a sheet of ice breaking loose from a glacier and slowly sliding into the freezing water of the Arctic Ocean. At another moment, one might think of droplets of water melting from a chain of icicles, forming a series of perfect rings in the water below, or a solitary block of ice dislodged from the gutter on the fringe of building, dropping silently through the air only to shatter into a thousand pieces on the sidewalk.
-Matthew Thomas
Annotated by James Koo