The Impostor is a concerto for

Banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

and Orchestra written by Béla Fleck. Fleck premiered the concerto on September 22, 2011, with the Nashville Symphony (

Giancarlo Guerrero Giancarlo Guerrero (born 1969) is a Costa Rican, Nicaraguan-born, US-based music director. He is the music director of the Nashville Symphony in Nashville, Tennessee. Guerrero is also Music Director of the Wrocław Philharmonic at the National Fo ...

conducting) in the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

. It was recorded over the course of three live performances and released on the eponymous album The Impostor. The concerto is dedicated to

Earl Scruggs Earl Eugene Scruggs (January 6, 1924 – March 28, 2012) was an American musician noted for popularizing a three-finger banjo picking style, now called "Scruggs style", which is a defining characteristic of bluegrass music. His three-fin ...

, who Fleck lists as his primary inspiration for playing the banjo.

Instrumentation

The concerto is scored for 2

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

piccolo The piccolo ( ; Italian for 'small') is a half-size flute and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. Sometimes referred to as a "baby flute" the modern piccolo has similar fingerings as the standard transverse flute, but the so ...

, 2 oboes,

English horn The cor anglais (, or original ; plural: ''cors anglais''), or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe, making it essentially an alto ...

, 2

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

, 2

bassoon The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuo ...

contrabassoon The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower. Its technique is similar to its smaller cousin, with a few notable differences. Differences from the bassoon The reed is consi ...

, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 trombones,

bass trombone The bass trombone (german: Bassposaune, it, trombone basso) is the bass instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. Modern instruments are pitched in the same B♭ as the tenor trombone but with a larger bore, bell and mouthpiece to ...

, tuba, tympani, percussion, and

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

Form

The concerto is in three movements: # Infiltration # Integration # Truth Revealed The entire concerto is 36 minutes long.

Composition

The concerto was commissioned by the Nashville Symphony in 2011. The uphill six-month long writing process became the subject of a documentary called ''How to Write a Banjo Concerto'' which Fleck co-directed with Sascha Paladino. One of the most challenging parts of the writing process Fleck had to overcome was that he had no experience in writing orchestral music. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Fleck described his ability to read music as "rather primitive." He overcame this by writing the orchestral parts in banjo tab, then used computer software to "translate" the tab into standard music notation. The concerto depicts a "heroes' journey, with the banjo in the starring role." The unusual naming of the movements, which he found after composition was completed, relates Fleck's feelings of being an outsider:

A musician like myself can feel that way pretty regularly, even though the point of much of what I do is to attempt to find ways to fit naturally into many diverse environments. I often do feel like an impostor, and if anyone ever figured out the truth, I’m certain that I’d be ejected, immediately. So maybe the banjo player snuck into the orchestra with a disguise on (Infiltration), was pretty convincing that he belonged there (Integration), but at some point he let the cat out of the bag (Truth Revealed): He/I am a low-class banjo playing scuffler and should be tossed out forthwith! But that’s just one interpretation.”

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Impostor Béla Fleck Concertos 2011 compositions