“Clowns” was an orchestration exercise I did in high school, back when I was sixteen. Fortunately, the public school I went to in D.C. had an orchestra, so I was able to hear what I did. My subject was a piano piece by Joaquin Turina, chosen simply because it was short and suitable. I had started to orchestrate one of Satie’s “Nocturnes,” only to discover that it was stubbornly pianistic. “Clowns,” however, was not.
