Searching for an Identity
Alkmaar: Ragtime for the Conscious Soul, Op.2 No.6
SM-000067734
- Alternative title
- Alkmaar: Ragtime voor de Bewuste Ziel
- Composer
- Antonio Martinez
- Publisher
- Antonio Martinez
- Genre
-
Jazz / Ragtime
- Instrumentation
- Piano
- Scored for
- Solo
- Type of score
- For a single performer
- Duration
- 3'49"
- Difficulty
- Difficult
- Year of composition
- 2011
Description
This melody is the sixth destination in the collection of the series "Ragtime at the Red Light District." This rag occurs at Alkmaar's Achterdam.
The main character in this piece is a 31-year old adjunct professor who is currently on sabbatical. This person is also a missionary when not in the classroom and decided to embark on an adventure. The main character began his charitable mission when he met 36 orphans from Alkmaar and other suburbs. So the main character decided to take time from his vacation to have the children experience Alkmaar. This person escorted the children first to Grote or Sint-Laurenskerk before embarking on the city's famous cheese market, Holland Cheese Museum, and the bicycling velodrome.
The main character even used his early retirement money to purchase tickets for the children to attend a Dutch Cup quarterfinal at DSB Stadion. With nightfall approaching, the main character managed to find suitable foster parents for the children, the extraction point being at apartments nearby National Beer Museum.
The main character continued his power walk alone and eventually arrived at Achterdam. It is there where the person saw his moment to make a call of action; that is because there was no sense of anticipating classy women strutting on the streets of the city. Instead, the main character witnessed foreign women and workers whose dignities had been strayed at even destroyed by other unruly people. Guided by faith, the main character, wearing all white garments, consoles the women and even feels empathy, recalling the famous words seem at Amsterdam's famous Belle Statue that people must "respect sex workers all over the world."
This piece has a format of 4AA8B4CADACC. Scott Joplin's "The Strenuous Life" and "Original Rags" were the basis for this piece.