Chamber Music
Four Movements for String Quartet and Soprano (2005)
In January 2005 Jobe composed the slow movement Trouverité, based on a poem he wrote in 1984, which became the center of gravity for the other three movements he wrote that winter and spring. Four Movements summarizes the sounds he has worked with in the past: folk, medieval, and circus waltz. The piece had its premiere in May 2005 and the performance was enriched by the contribution of his longtime friends and musical colleagues: violinist Laura Gulley, cellist Rob Bethel and vocalist Ellen Santaniello. The recording of that performance helped him win the 2006 Composer Fellowship sponsored by the RI State Council on the Arts. In reviewing the piece, composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez remarked on "the integration of Medieval dance rhythms and Baroque figuration in contemporary harmonic context."
Four Movements was performed again in December 2007 by the Providence String Quartet. Composer Garrison Hull wrote a review of the concert for the Community Music Works blog: "This concert featured Steve Jobe's Four Movements for String Quartet and Soprano, and featured Ellen Santaniello, soloist, and the Providence String Quartet. Repeated melodic phrases joined in the minimalist style, rising to culmination points, the voices coming together to give the occasional wisp of an unsettled tonal cadence before setting off again. The work gives a satisfying sense of continual propulsion."
Four Movements is in memory of Steve's father,
Carl Frederick Jobe (1930-2000).
Movement II, Trouverité:
Movement II:
Bacchanal—from the program Music for Three Hurdy-Gurdies (2007)
Rob Bethel cello, Laura Gulley violin, Daniel Thonon hurdy-gurdy, Chris Turner bagpipes
Three Movements: St. Francis, Coyote, Lithuanian Fragment
Choreography: Ting (2007) by Suzanne Wiltgen
Dancers: Lightsey Darst, Laura Grant, Denise Gagner
Tempest Waltz (1997/revised 2008) and Clownfish Trioriz (2008)
Video Clip: Tempest Waltz and Clownfish Trioriz
Laughing A Lot 49 (2009)
