The idea for Rooftop Garden came to me while sitting in my doctor’s waiting room on a hot afternoon. The window was open, and across the street I noticed a rooftop garden on a mid-rise building – planters growing vegetables, trees and bushes spilling over the ledge. As the leaves swayed in a light breeze, I began to tune in to the sounds below: cars and trucks passing, brakes squealing, horns blaring, people talking and their footsteps quickening when crossing the street. Then, in my head, I heard those first couple of piano notes, then a honk – a saxophone! And the idea for Rooftop Garden was born.
The piece portrays three scenes across shifting hours at an intersection, observed from atop the rooftop garden on a roadside city block.
In the first movement, a sweltering summer afternoon has everyone stuck in Traffic. The air is thick, and the streets are jammed — cars honking, vendors shouting, people crowding the sidewalks. Vehicles inch across the intersection, blocking each other as tempers rise. When the light turns green, everyone surges forward – cars, cyclists, and pedestrians alike. From open windows above, people lean out, chatting across the street in search of a breeze. A fruit cart breaks down in the crosswalk, sending its load tumbling across the intersection, and chaos erupts each time an ambulance tries to push through.
Sodium-vapor is the gas used in streetlamps that casts the city in a monochromatic orange glow. At night, the intersection quiets as traffic fades, but the roadside stalls stay open, selling street food and filling the air with steam and delicious scents. Despite calmer traffic, there is no less action at the intersection when rats emerge from the depths of the city to scavenge what’s left on the roads and steal from the stalls when no one looks. But they are not alone – soon they’re chased by prowling cats. A fierce nocturnal “ballet” breaks out, until their brawl is suddenly interrupted by a street sweeper clearing the roads for dawn.
With the first sunlight hitting the intersection, the Rush Hour begins! Like a surge, the streets fill with cars, buses, bikes, and hurried footsteps – the intersection now crowded once more, but at a much faster pace. People run in and out of bakeries and hairdressers, getting ready for the day. Children flood the crosswalks, pigeons and stray dogs dart after crumbs, and even the odd rat still scurries along the alleys.
From atop the rooftop garden, the intersection that seemed like a chaotic mess, reveals itself to host a complex, interlocking rhythm, pulsating with the life of the city.
