Jessica Hunt
PERUSALSCORE
Images of Guemes
for String Quartet (2018)
SCORE
Jessica Hunt
Images of Guemes
for String Quartet (2018)
PERUSALSCORE
I. sailing across the channel on the spray-soaked ferr y as the eagle soars above
II. the sky reflecting in the water at dusk beyond the eagle tree
III. coda: remembering, longing
SCORE
Program Note
The San Juan islands are tucked away in the very northwestern-most corner of the Pacific Northwest, with Guemes Island as the first, and the smallest, in the archipelago. It has its own tiny ferry to shuttle a few cars at a time back and forth from Anacortes, Washington. Tourists mostly pass over the unassuming island in favor of other, larger island offerings, leaving Guemes’ beautiful craggy cliffs and timbered hills mostly to its peaceful residents. There’s a part of me that grew up on this island, spending slow, quiet childhood summers with my grandparents.
Many years later, in the summer of 2017, I visited their old yellow house overlooking the Guemes Channel and Dead Man’s Cove, overwhelmed by the juxtaposition of my childhood memories with the present. The wood of the deck, once brightly painted, was now peeling. The rocking chair where my grandfather once sat to look out on the sailboats was gone, the kitchen where my grandmother used to make her famous biscuits now barren.
Yet the way the salt-spray crashed over the ferry deck as it rushed across the channel; the way the proud bald eagle surveyed the water from his gnarled, wind-scrabbled tree; and the way the gentle light would change at sunset in the crisp, cool air when the water grew still and the world turned orange and lavender, these images were the same, and always will be. My grandparents’ old home has now been sold, and a new child has taken my place in the yellow house with its eagle tree on the cliff. I can never go back, but I will always remember. Images of Guemes is dedicated to the memories of Verdon and Opal Spurlock, and to the spirit of the island.
PERUSALSCORE
—Jessica Hunt 2018
Duration: c. 9 minutes
© 2018 Jessica Hunt (ASCAP). All Rights Reserved. Program Note © 2018 Jessica Hunt. All Rights Reserved. For more information, visit www.jessicahuntmusic.com
View Westward from the peak of Guemes mountain.(photo taken June 2017)
is work was created under the aegis of the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music and premiered by the Chiara Quartet in Boonville, California on Septermber 19, 2018. is work is dedicated to the memories of Opal and Verdon Spurlock, and to the spirit of the island.
IMAGES OF GUEMES
I. sailing across the channel on the spray-soaked ferry as the eagle soars above for string quartet
Violin I
Violin II
Viola
Cello
Violin II
Viola
Cello
PERUSALSCORE
