× Board & Staff Make a Donation Giving Support Education Upcoming Events Past Events
Home Board & Staff Make a Donation Giving Support Education Upcoming Events
Zodiac Animalia

Zodiac Animalia
Jessica Wells
(b. August 9, 1974 in Boynton Beach, Florida)

Americans have only a tenuous claim on Jessica Wells because she has lived all her life after age 11 in Australia and her education and career are centered there. Her final academic degree to date (2005), Master of Arts in Screen Composition from Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), underscored her career choice as a music entrepreneur. After she received her AFTRS degree she launched and still runs Jigsaw Music, a company offering service in all things music to customers all over the world. She manages a staff of orchestrators, arrangers, copyists, and librarians and uses her staff so effectively that she seemingly has all the time in the world to compose exactly what she wants to: high-profile jobs like orchestrating the score for fellow Australian Baz Luhrmann’s epic film Elvis, along with ample solo, chamber, and orchestral music–especially if it tells a good story. Reading her extensive catalog, one cannot miss that she knows how to have a good time.

Wells’ Zodiac Animalia was written in 2017 for an orchestral workshop and its first performance was April 7, 2018. The published version was revised for the recorded performance in 2019 by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Wells herself wrote a brief program note: “The Chinese animal zodiac is a repeating cycle of 12 years, with each year being represented by an animal and its reputed attributes. Traditionally these zodiac animals were used to date the years. In order, the 12 animals are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig. In this set of twelve approximately one-minute episodes, I have attempted to capture the personality of each animal, or perhaps the anthropomorphism that humans project onto each animal!”

A little more about the Chinese mythology: the animals are ordered in six pairs. If the animal has odd toes per limb it represents yang; even toes, yin, alternating in each pair. In each pair the animals have complementary virtues.

Here is a short write-up, by pairs, to help the listener. The movements proceed with little if any pauses between them.

  • Rat/Ox. The Rat’s Tempo is Scurrying, very apt, and over in a hurry. Lean orchestration with bongos getting moments at the beginning and end. The Ox lumbers, fed by big brass. The Ox moos! Concertgoers may debate whether Wells’ Ox or Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Ox pulling the Cart” in Pictures at an Exhibition is their favorite.
  • Tiger/Rabbit. The scene is set in the jungle, percussion portending the extended crescendo to a climactic end. The Rabbit’s nose is aquiver. Is there danger? Run, Rabbit! The Rabbit is also caught up in a crescendo but one that ends abruptly. The music affirms: Rabbit, safe!
  • Dragon/Snake. Tempo for Dragon is marked “Mystical and mythical”–mythical, certainly–the only imaginary animal of the 12. All sections of the orchestra get a part but never at the same time. At the end, this instruction: “Superball on Tam tam. improvise eerie sounds. (in the cave of the Dragon)” The Dragon briefly shows its power but it’s not a day for fire-breathing. The Snake follows a sinuous course. Easy to see in the conductor’s score, the visual path of the notes on the page goes down to the right in the wind parts. Following a similarly serpentine path the music climbs back up from whence it came. Did Chinese myth-makers believe in the number zero and, if so, that it was even? Rather advanced mathematics, really.
  • Horse/Goat. Certainly not just one horse, but a stampede. Metrically irregular, the percussion runs the show, driving the herd forward, only to stop abruptly. Rather than Goat, Wells uses the less common translation, sheep. The tempo is marked Pastoral. With the absence of brass and percussion, the shepherd may be asleep in the grass by the end.
  • Monkey/Rooster. The Monkey careens through it, the shortest piece. If there was any doubt we should be enjoying ourselves, the percussion is instructed in the final three bars: “unashamedly bombastic - like a toy monkey bashing cymbal.” A Rooster crow is mimicked by two trumpets–three times at the beginning, twice at the end. Horns and muted trumpets carry on with a pecking figure.
  • Dog/Pig. It’s a day in the life of a Dog, summarized in under two minutes. A short time waking up, “Suddenly Playful”--active and tiring–then off to sleep. The Pig by its place as the last animal of the year is the subject of the Finale. It gets more treatment from the full orchestra. It is subsumed into the score with a section labeled “Pig Mosso.” The harp must interpret the instruction “Hollywood!” over expansive glissandos up and down. If it’s not pigs flying, what is it?

© 2011, 2016, 2023 by Steven Hollingsworth, Creative Commons Public Attribution 3.0 United States License.

Zodiac Animalia

Zodiac Animalia
Jessica Wells
(b. August 9, 1974 in Boynton Beach, Florida)

Americans have only a tenuous claim on Jessica Wells because she has lived all her life after age 11 in Australia and her education and career are centered there. Her final academic degree to date (2005), Master of Arts in Screen Composition from Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS), underscored her career choice as a music entrepreneur. After she received her AFTRS degree she launched and still runs Jigsaw Music, a company offering service in all things music to customers all over the world. She manages a staff of orchestrators, arrangers, copyists, and librarians and uses her staff so effectively that she seemingly has all the time in the world to compose exactly what she wants to: high-profile jobs like orchestrating the score for fellow Australian Baz Luhrmann’s epic film Elvis, along with ample solo, chamber, and orchestral music–especially if it tells a good story. Reading her extensive catalog, one cannot miss that she knows how to have a good time.

Wells’ Zodiac Animalia was written in 2017 for an orchestral workshop and its first performance was April 7, 2018. The published version was revised for the recorded performance in 2019 by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra. Wells herself wrote a brief program note: “The Chinese animal zodiac is a repeating cycle of 12 years, with each year being represented by an animal and its reputed attributes. Traditionally these zodiac animals were used to date the years. In order, the 12 animals are: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat (Sheep), Monkey, Rooster, Dog, Pig. In this set of twelve approximately one-minute episodes, I have attempted to capture the personality of each animal, or perhaps the anthropomorphism that humans project onto each animal!”

A little more about the Chinese mythology: the animals are ordered in six pairs. If the animal has odd toes per limb it represents yang; even toes, yin, alternating in each pair. In each pair the animals have complementary virtues.

Here is a short write-up, by pairs, to help the listener. The movements proceed with little if any pauses between them.

  • Rat/Ox. The Rat’s Tempo is Scurrying, very apt, and over in a hurry. Lean orchestration with bongos getting moments at the beginning and end. The Ox lumbers, fed by big brass. The Ox moos! Concertgoers may debate whether Wells’ Ox or Mussorgsky/Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Ox pulling the Cart” in Pictures at an Exhibition is their favorite.
  • Tiger/Rabbit. The scene is set in the jungle, percussion portending the extended crescendo to a climactic end. The Rabbit’s nose is aquiver. Is there danger? Run, Rabbit! The Rabbit is also caught up in a crescendo but one that ends abruptly. The music affirms: Rabbit, safe!
  • Dragon/Snake. Tempo for Dragon is marked “Mystical and mythical”–mythical, certainly–the only imaginary animal of the 12. All sections of the orchestra get a part but never at the same time. At the end, this instruction: “Superball on Tam tam. improvise eerie sounds. (in the cave of the Dragon)” The Dragon briefly shows its power but it’s not a day for fire-breathing. The Snake follows a sinuous course. Easy to see in the conductor’s score, the visual path of the notes on the page goes down to the right in the wind parts. Following a similarly serpentine path the music climbs back up from whence it came. Did Chinese myth-makers believe in the number zero and, if so, that it was even? Rather advanced mathematics, really.
  • Horse/Goat. Certainly not just one horse, but a stampede. Metrically irregular, the percussion runs the show, driving the herd forward, only to stop abruptly. Rather than Goat, Wells uses the less common translation, sheep. The tempo is marked Pastoral. With the absence of brass and percussion, the shepherd may be asleep in the grass by the end.
  • Monkey/Rooster. The Monkey careens through it, the shortest piece. If there was any doubt we should be enjoying ourselves, the percussion is instructed in the final three bars: “unashamedly bombastic - like a toy monkey bashing cymbal.” A Rooster crow is mimicked by two trumpets–three times at the beginning, twice at the end. Horns and muted trumpets carry on with a pecking figure.
  • Dog/Pig. It’s a day in the life of a Dog, summarized in under two minutes. A short time waking up, “Suddenly Playful”--active and tiring–then off to sleep. The Pig by its place as the last animal of the year is the subject of the Finale. It gets more treatment from the full orchestra. It is subsumed into the score with a section labeled “Pig Mosso.” The harp must interpret the instruction “Hollywood!” over expansive glissandos up and down. If it’s not pigs flying, what is it?

© 2011, 2016, 2023 by Steven Hollingsworth, Creative Commons Public Attribution 3.0 United States License.