A different sort of title for me; but it's more about (very oblique) reference than romance. It's a bit of a nod to Moonlight by Benjamin Britten - an extremely (and maybe unexpectedly) psychedelic work. It might also bring to mind Moonlight on Vermontby Captain Beefheart a composer whose ability to change a mind is never unexpected. And maybe there's even a suggestion of the standard, Moonlight in Vermont; I always think of Willie Nelson's waking-dream of a version. My piece doesn't sound much like any of the above, but it would be some company it would like to keep. "Bluff" is one of those multi-meaning words that often show up in my titles. Of course, it implies various kinds of deception; but it can also mean "good-naturedly frank and hearty," "a steep promontory, bank, or cliff," or, most significantly here, "a clump of trees on the prairie."
Continuum performed the World Premiere of Moonlight on the Bluff on April 26, 2005.
Toronto-based composer and performer Martin Arnold studied in Edmonton, Banff, the Hague, and Victoria where his teachers were Alfred Fisher, Frederic Rzewski, John Cage, Louis Andriessen, Gilius van Bergeijk, Rudolf Komorous, Douglas Collinge, and Michael Longton. Arnold is a founding member of the Drystone Orchestra and from 1995-2000 he was artistic director of The Burdocks. Besides having notated pieces performed internationally, Arnold currently plays guitar, banjo, melodica and live electronics in Marmots and Cow Paws as well as in bands led by Ryan Driver and Eric Chenaux and in a variety of ad hoc improvised music settings. Arnold works as a gardener and teaches in the Cultural Studies Department of Trent University.