Duration: 8'

Rickshaw Zip refers to those three wheeled taxis in India, which zip you from one place to another along crowded city roads. If you pay careful attention to the constant near misses in the traffic you might wind up with a heart attack, so best is to focus on the people, houses and cows along the way. This harrowing fizz in the music is divided into two by a different moment in big city traffic: around 4 am there is peace in the streets. Mystical silence is articulated by the occasional dog bark or the night blooming Brahma Kamal flower.

 

It may not sound like it but the music is quite Indian in essence, using a common Carnatic meter and a Raga approach to the pitches.

 

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Rickshaw Zip was composed for Ilonka Kolthof and the Dutch Piccolo project, and made possible by the Performing Arts Fund NL.