Strikingly for Piccolo and Fixed Media

Lisa Bost-Sandberg’s Strikingly (2021) is a compact yet arresting work that places the piccolo in vivid dialogue with fixed media. Written for Claudia Anderson’s Glass Ceilings commissioning project, the piece draws on the metaphor of a fractured glass ceiling - honouring the lineage of women composers who have chipped at its surface while affirming the composer’s own voice after a creative hiatus.

At just four minutes, the work is notable for its intensity and sense of scope. The fixed media track opens a metallic, resonant soundworld - buzzing textures, shimmering chimes, and percussive strikes - that expands the piccolo’s palette. BostSandberg asks the performer not only for brilliance but also for fragility and grit: airy tones, quarter tones, multiphonics, and embouchure bends weave into and against the electronic layer. The result is a tapestry that reframes the piccolo from its usual “piercing” stereotype into an instrument of colour, tension, and resilience.

The score reflects meticulous care and generosity toward the performer. Fingering diagrams, nuanced vibrato markings, and embouchure-directed glissandi highlight the piece’s investment in timbral exploration while ensuring its extended techniques remain accessible. These sounds never appear ornamental; they are integral to the expressive arc, as the piccolo’s voice alternately pierces through, merges with, and recedes into the fixed media.

What emerges is a work that feels both personal and political. Though connected to the Glass Ceilings project, Strikingly avoids overt didacticism. Instead, it enacts the metaphor through sound - gestures that strike, splinter, and reverberate until the final static textures dissolve. The effect is cathartic and affirming: a reminder of persistence and the resonance that follows.

Strikingly is a welcome addition to the piccolo’s contemporary repertoire, one that demonstrates the instrument’s versatility and affirms the importance of voices carving space within the field.