Joel Puckett | Composer | comfortsnote

joel puckett
composer

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Southern Comforts (2008) 
for violin solo, orchestral winds, bass, piano and percussion

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LISTEN TO THE WORLD PREMIERE:
 World Premiere performance by the J. Eric Wilson; Eka Gogicheshvili;
 and the Baylor University Wind Ensemble at CBDNA in Austin 2009


Instrumentation

VIOLIN SOLOIST 
 
Flute 1-2 
Oboe 1-2 
B-flat Clarinet 1-2 
Bassoon 1-2 
 
Trumpet in C 
Horn in F 
Bass Trombone 
 
Double Bass 
 
Piano 
Percussion 1: Glockenspiel, Vibraphone (Shared with Player 2) 
Percussion 2: Vibraphone, Marimba (5 octave) Large Triangle 

 
Program note for Southern Comforts 
Southern Comforts was completed in October 2008 for 
a consortium of collegiate wind ensembles. The members of the consortium:

Arizona State University—Gary Hill 
Baylor University—J. Eric Wilson 
Boston College—Seb Bonaiuto 
Georgia State University—Robert Ambrose 
University of Iowa—Mark Heidel and Scott Conklin 
University of Michigan—Michael Haithcock 
University of North Carolina-Greensboro—John Locke and Kevin Geraldi 
University of Tennessee—Gary Sousa 
University of Texas-Arlington—Doug Stotter 
Valdosta State University—Joe Brashier 
 
Home. I think about it constantly. I haven’t spent more than a week in the south in more than seven years and yet, I know it will always be home. Sometimes it’s a phone call from mom or a card from my sister. Sometimes it’s the faint smell of a dogwood or an Atlanta Braves box score in the paper. No, I haven’t really been there in years but I think about it daily. 
 
In Southern Comforts I am sharing some of the things that were important to me growing up in Atlanta or have become important in trying to remember home. Each movement is my representation of a memory or item from my childhood in the south. 
 
Movement I. Faulkner 
 
Often when I am feeling particularly nostalgic I like to pull out Sound and the Fury or As I Lay Dying. Faulkner’s descriptions of Mississippi and dysfunctional southern families always make me want to get on the first plane back home. 

(There is no pause between movements 1 and 2.) 
 
Movement II. Ritual: Football and The Lord 
 
Sunday ritual: Breakfast, Sunday School, Service, Lunch, Football. (In the off-season: Golf) 
From cradle to age 15, I can literally count on a single hand the number of times that I missed any part of this routine. And I tackled each part of the routine with equal seriousness. I still remember who Methuselah begot and every Sunday when the prelude begins, I can smell the carpet at the now defunct First Christian Church in Collage Park, GA. (And I can also tell you who started at every position for the 1980 Falcons.) 
 
Movement III. Lamentation 
 
Lamentation is a traditional form that began in early baroque opera and is characterized by a mourning text and the so called “descending tetra–chord” which is a falling chromatic line that is usually treated as an ostinato. Egypt Puckett died May 5, and we mourned her with equal parts emotion and, as is tradition, great restraint. 
 
Movement IV. Mint Julep 
 
I must admit this is a late affectation that I have developed. Before I left the south I had no idea what a mint julep was and didn’t give a hoot about some horse race over in Kentucky. But as time passes it seems that I look for reasons to feel nostalgic, so every year around May 1, I can be found breaking out the mint leaves and the whiskey. 

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