Tinguely's Fountain
The British Trombone Society approached me for a piece to be played at one of their festivals. Five minutes of music for upwards of 200 players, ranging in ability from world-class international virtuosi to people who'd just learned how to put the instrument together. A technical challenge, to be sure. Since players tend to sort themselves into groups of roughly equal ability, I decided to write it for several clumps of players, with the hard parts at the top of the page and the easy ones at the bottom. I wrote the piece in the Sage Gateshead during a patch of work with Northern Sinfonia.
The inspiration was the splendid kinetic fountain installed in Basel by Jean Tinguely. You can see the fountain doing its stuff here:
The piece is published by Warwick Music: