Searching for an Identity
Lille: Ragtime for the Defiant Soul, Op.2 No.34
SM-000252037
- Alternative title
- Lille: Ragtime pour L'âme Séditieux
- Composer
- Antonio Martinez
- Publisher
- Antonio Martinez
- Genre
-
Jazz / Ragtime
- Instrumentation
- Piano
- Scored for
- Solo
- Type of score
- For a single performer
- Duration
- 3'34"
- Difficulty
- Difficult
- Year of composition
- 2016
Description
This is the thirty-fourth destination in the collection of the series "Ragtime at the Red Light District." This piece is set at Lille's Nord-Pas-de-Calais.
The main character in this piece is a 26-year old women's rights activist on assignment in France. Although only active in the field for less than 28 months, this person has been active in the women's rights community across cities in Scandinavia, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and France.
During his four days in Lille, the main character had gotten an opportunity to write five op-ed pieces for La Voix du Nord, pieces concerning issues with women and pay in the workforce. The person also conducted a lecture Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille III. He even attended rallies outside Stade Pierre-Mauroy and Stadium Lille Métropole where he joined other female football players protesting a decision to mandate artificial turf installed on all football fields in France.
The main character had finished his power walk at twilight before dusk when he arrived at the entrance of Nord-Pas-de-Calais. This person noticed a group of nine masculine thugs, aided by a town's local aide, harassing female workers and patrons to the point of diminishing their self-esteem. The main character felt disturbed that women were treated as not human in the city. So the main character, armed with only a famous large print copy of Eugene Delacroix "Liberty Leading the People," helped inspired the downtrodden women of the street. The group managed to oust the male thugs that had demeaned their spirit and in the process, made their new found hero, the main character, the street's new activist for the red-light district.
This piece has a format of 8AABBACCDD. Frederic Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude and Friedrich Burgmüller's "Ballade" were the basis for this piece.