Ken Vandermark and the Problem of Program Music: Momentum 3 at the Sugar Maple

The idea of program music – music meant to accompany and/or represent a pre-existent narrative structure or object; for instance, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf,” Duke Ellington’s “Monologue (Pretty and the Wolf),” Luiz Bonfá’s “A Brazilian in New York,” and Garoto’s “Um Rosto de Mulher