Commissioned spring 2001 by PhiIadelphia new music ensemble Relâche for a 12- 18 minute chamber octet, this was not the piece I expected to write. Nor, even in October 2001, the piece I wanted to write.”

This piece is about 1/2 hour in duration and includes full score (90 pages) plus individual parts for 9 instruments. Price reflects the number of parts included ($7 for the score plus $7 per part = $70, discounted to $56). Contact us here with any questions.

“[Brazelton’s] commissioned piece As the Day Goes By was the centerpiece of Relâche weekend concerts in Wilmington and Philadelphia. Written at warp speed after Sept. 11, Day is meant to be her Guernica. Brazelton wrote herself into the score. And Friday, at the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, her husky rock voice pushed anguish through the instrumental ensemble. The work's message is mostly in its sound, but toward the end, instrumentalists joined in the "Dies Irae" before Brazelton intoned a word from the Koran meaning blessed be.

The cohesion of the music comes from her expression of then and now. Inspired use of steel drums as the eloquent, melodic voice of beauty gives the music its tenderness.

However risky it may be to write a quick response to news, Brazelton contains her primal scream within balanced musical quantities. She writes nervous but shaped agitation and invokes nostalgia without approaching sentimentality. The ending - a series of crescendoes and decrescendoes - seemed like exhausted breathing, and drew its strength from its seeming inevitability.

Relâche surrounded this piece with rollicking jazz explorations that ranged from Carolyn Yarnell's Bach-based More Spirit Than Matter to a big-band romp, Road Map, by John King.”

– Daniel Webster, Philadelphia Inquirer , December 3, 2001