Max Stoffregen

Max Stoffregen

The Gila: River, Mesa, and Mountain

(2019)

for piano quintet

i. River

ii. Mesa

iii. Mountain

From Max Stoffregen

The “Gila Country”, as it is sometimes called, represents the headwaters of the Gila River, a tributary of the Colorado River; it is a place of vigorous water, endlessly unfolding mesas, and richly forested mountains thick with wildlife, all surrounded by high-desert; it has been the refuge of many people and is rich in history that is both legendary and infamous. Today it remains a wild land despite the ceaseless human activity that has occurred all around it. For all these reasons and some unknowable ones, the Gila Country seems to hold a special place in the American Southwest, and certainly in my imagination.

This music is my second collaboration with Friction Quartet and is an attempt to express the beauty of the Gila Country of Arizona and New Mexico. Thanks to the dedicated efforts of Brett “Blisterfree” Tucker in creating the Grand Enchantment Trail, I was able to spend two months in 2017 walking from Phoenix to Albuquerque, traversing much of the Gila River watershed and planting the inspiration that grew to become this composition. Continuous footpaths like the GET are a rare window into both how the world was and how it is, and have helped me learn how to have a relationship with the land.