Amos Elkana: Tripp

Amos Elkana was born in Boston in 1967 but grew up in Jerusalem. He studied Jazz guitar at Berklee College of Music and composition at the New England Conservatory of Music. He then went on to Bard College, where he earned an MFA in electronic music and sound. Over the years, Elkana has received numerous awards for his compositions, among them are the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize for Music Composition, ACUM golden feather award and the Rozenblum Prize for excellence in the arts. Elkana composes concert music for orchestras, ensembles and individual performers as well as for dance, theatre and film. His works have been performed and recorded by ensembles and musicians from all over the world and there have been several highly acclaimed albums of his music. Elkana is also an active performer. He regularly participates in concerts and performances as an electric guitar player and live electronics musician.

Tripp (2016) is a 13-minute composition for Pierrot quintet (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano). The composer has written: “In Tripp I have used a series of numbers as a fractal in order to create the structure of the composition and the proportions within it. This is a technique I use often. It creates a form where the micro and macro levels have the same proportions. Exactly as it is in fractal geometry where zooming into a part of the whole reveals that it looks exactly like the whole. While searching for a title for this piece I googled the number series that I used and a zip-code of a small town in South Dakota came up. The town’s name is Tripp… This piece was commissioned by the Barlow Endowment for Music Composition at Brigham Young University for the Meitar Ensemble. It premiered at Meitar’s 2016-2017 season opening concert on October 29th 2016 in Tel Aviv.”