As 2020 came to a close I began reflecting on a year that simultaneously felt longer than any other year and as fleeting as the minutes of a day. I don’t need to wax poetic about how difficult of a year it was. We are all living the same trials in one way or another. However, during my reflections I focused on the good and the growth that 2020 provided me. I grew in many ways, both personally and artistically, and I felt reconnected to the people around me even though we have been forced to stay apart. I’m grateful that 2020 was a busy year for me, and even more grateful for the challenges that came with each piece.
Early in the year, I wrote a raging string quartet for Del Sol Quartet, titled A Song About Unity, in which I tackled my frustrations with the classical music scene and the culture at large. The piece sways between explosive instability and mechanistic rigidity before uniting into an incomplete song of grandeur that dissipates into an uneasy coda. Del Sol nailed the performance and was generous enough to perform the piece a second time in October.
Shortly after completing the quartet I began working on a large chamber piece for the National Orchestral Institute and Festival. The piece, titled Observer, was inspired by director Kelly Reichardt whose films exist in a special place in my soul. The frenetic energy of A Song About Unity, led to the exact opposite in Observer. Her direction makes each scene feel like you are an observer in a natural environment, watching the world go by ever so slowly. However, each subtle moment carries with it the weight of a person’s entire history. In this piece I tried to recreate a version of this sensation, making the conductor the audience and slowly stripping them of their power. By the end of the piece, the ensemble is in control of the material and the conductor can do nothing but watch as the world goes by. Unfortunately, the premiere of this piece was pushed back to Summer 2021, but I’m eager to see this piece come to life.
With no downtime, I quickly began work on my third piece of the year, a pandemic performance of a chamber work for pierrot ensemble plus percussion and voice. Commissioned by the Ad Astra Music Festival, Scattered Inheritance was my way of capturing the moment and freezing time. With the pandemic just beginning and the reality of an uncertain future sinking in, I let my intuition fully lead the way. I wrote a little about the process of writing this piece, which you can read here along with a video of the performance.
The last piece I completed in 2020 was a small work donated to the #GLFCAMGigThruCovid project. I really wanted this work to be a sort of meditative balm for the performers. You can find a performance of feeling less and less here.
Also released last year was a new album titled Night Window. With this release I really worked toward patience with my writing. Each track lives in its own acoustic space, only striving to do enough to keep you there. You can find the record on Bandcamp along with a couple of other releases.
As always, I am extremely thankful for my collaborators and anyone who has helped to elevate my work in any way. Even through the worst stretches of last year, I saw great and inspiring things come from artists I know and admire. This gives me a lot of hope for the new year.