Program Notes
There is a long tradition in jazz of instruments carrying on a conversation--either intricate, soloistic dialogues (often improvised) or the call and response of larger forces. "Speak to me" is above all such a conversation, at first among soloists and then among more and more performers as they gradually join in. This piece begins with a simple tune that increasingly overlaps with--and is interrupted by--other ideas, generating enormous energy along the way.
The piece was commissioned by the John F. Kennedy High School in LaPalma, California.