Phantom Carousel
Sumi Tonooka
Tedesco Studios
Paramus, NJ
March 2010

I composed Phantom Carousel when I was studying with Dennis Sandole in Philadelphia. He would always give assignments in composition usually, based off a scale or concept we were working on. This piece was based off a six-tone Egyptian scale. I remember when I brought it in to him, he said he wished he had written it!

When I heard those six tones, I saw a picture immediately of a carousel going around and around, surrounded in mist, disappearing and reappearing, with children’s voices and laughter, but no children, a Phantom Carousel.

I believe there is something about this scale that can conjure the spirits. It has a magical quality, serene, dark and mysterious.