Ruminations for flute, cello, and piano (2019)
First performance
Alice Jones (flute), Anneke Schaul-Yoder (cello), and Derin Öge (piano); Brooklyn, NY (November 2019)
Alice Jones (flute), Anneke Schaul-Yoder (cello), and Derin Öge (piano); Brooklyn, NY (November 2019)
Duration
17 minutes
17 minutes
Perusal score
Purchase
Program note
I wrote this work in June 2019 while staying at the home of flutist Tara O’Connor in Manhattan. My apartment was being renovated, and she graciously and generously let me and my dog stay with her and her dogs. This is my first composition—at age 36!—but the process of writing felt like the culmination of many things I’d been thinking about my musical practice, particularly tone color and how one player's musical gestures in an ensemble can fold over and around each other like a tapestry. The title and mood of the first movement come from one of my last conversations with my mother before she died. The second movement was more experiential: I would walk the dogs to Riverside Park to watch the sunset every evening. Each night was the same but different, just like each moment as the sun dipped under New Jersey.
While writing, I was thinking of several musicians, trying to be cognizant of who I was admiring and who I was imitating. This is a brief, incomplete, but illustrative list of who was on my mind at the time: Philippe Gaubert, Hilary Tann, Louise Farrenc, Laura Kaminsky, Jean Sibelius, Sugar Vendil, Billy Ocean, Hugh Ash, Tara O'Connor, my flute student who had missed their lesson earlier that spring which gave me time to improvise a melody that became the third movement, Anneke, Derin, and, in the words of Borges, others I leave in silence.
I wrote this work in June 2019 while staying at the home of flutist Tara O’Connor in Manhattan. My apartment was being renovated, and she graciously and generously let me and my dog stay with her and her dogs. This is my first composition—at age 36!—but the process of writing felt like the culmination of many things I’d been thinking about my musical practice, particularly tone color and how one player's musical gestures in an ensemble can fold over and around each other like a tapestry. The title and mood of the first movement come from one of my last conversations with my mother before she died. The second movement was more experiential: I would walk the dogs to Riverside Park to watch the sunset every evening. Each night was the same but different, just like each moment as the sun dipped under New Jersey.
While writing, I was thinking of several musicians, trying to be cognizant of who I was admiring and who I was imitating. This is a brief, incomplete, but illustrative list of who was on my mind at the time: Philippe Gaubert, Hilary Tann, Louise Farrenc, Laura Kaminsky, Jean Sibelius, Sugar Vendil, Billy Ocean, Hugh Ash, Tara O'Connor, my flute student who had missed their lesson earlier that spring which gave me time to improvise a melody that became the third movement, Anneke, Derin, and, in the words of Borges, others I leave in silence.