All You Shining Stars Shanan Estreicher & Itamar Borochov

• Shanan Estreicher (1976): All You Shining Stars:
• 1 Estreicher: All You Shining Stars 05:27
• Arrows:
• 2 Estreicher: Arrows 06:32
• Woven:
• 3 Estreicher: Woven 06:49
• Total Runtime 18:48

Info for All You Shining Stars

A new work for improvised trumpet and strings featuring trumpeter Itamar Borochov. Raised in the cosmopolitan port city of Jaffa, now a significant presence on the international jazz scene, Borochov is creating a new musical hybrid – bringing the world sounds of his upbringing to a jazz quartet setting.

Notes by composer Shanan Estreicher: In 2016 I attended a performance of the Itamar Borochov Quartet at the Montreal Jazz Festival. I had always wanted to compose a work for a soloist that involved extended ornamentation and improvisation but never found a musician whose style matched my own musical aesthetic. I knew instantly I had found a kindred artistic spirit in trumpeter, Itamar Borochov. This encounter was the beginning of my musical journey to compose All You Shining Stars for improvised trumpet and strings. ​

My inspiration for this piece came from a beautiful summer evening in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan watching a meteor shower against the brilliant Milky Way. My thoughts instantly turned to Psalm 148 and the line, “Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars.” I decided to compose a three-movement work which would be a meditation on this psalm as well as two others. I was certain Itamar Borochov’s ethereal trumpet playing would fit perfectly with the textures I was hearing. ​

Movement 1 “All You Shining Stars” is based on three musical ideas. The first is a celestial texture in the upper strings representing the praises offered from the heavens in the psalm. The second idea is a gentle but declamatory melody in the trumpet which is freely ornamented. The final idea is chords in the low range of the strings which represent the praises offered from man, the earth, and the sea. ​

Movement 2 “Arrows” is a meditation on Psalm 38. The title comes from the line, “Your arrows have pierced me.” The intention of the music is to reflect the intense pain of the psalmist as he repents to God for his guilt and sin. I reference the Jewish liturgical music of my youth to create the lamenting cantorial melody. The rhythmic pulsing motives in the introduction and middle section represent the arrows piercing the psalmist’s flesh. The cantorial melody is first performed in the trumpet with minimal embellishments and a static accompaniment. The second repetition of the melody is highly ornamented with complex polyrhythmic patterns in the strings.

Movement 3 “Woven”, the tender conclusion to this work, is based on Psalm 139. The psalmist expresses intimate feelings to God when he writes, “My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.” This final movement features an extended trumpet solo where Itamar plays freely over a chord progression in the strings. The overall musical texture is based loosely on the polyphony of sacred Renaissance vocal music with the trumpet and five string parts playing independent melodic lines, woven together to create a lush sonority.

Itamar Borochov, trumpet
Shanan Estreicher, conductor
Nicholas Pappone, strings
Jason Mellow, strings
Maria Im, strings
Caroline Cassio Drexler, strings
Daniel Lamas, viola
Molly Aronson, cello
Christopher Johnson, double bass

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