Melt Cycles (2024)

Details:
for Flute, Bb Clarinet, Alto Sax, Violin, Cello, Piano, Percussion

10 minutes

Commissioned by the Fort Hays State University New Music Ensemble for their 2024 New Music Festival.

About the work:
When writing Melt Cycles I was confronted with what seemed like unending possibilities. Such a diverse group of instruments can span the possibilities of a full orchestra. I considered how to blend these instruments together. But I didn't want to just blend these sounds, I wanted them to melt. I wanted the pitches to flow in and out of each other, passing from one instrument to the next. I wanted the rhythms to intertwine and criss-cross, almost tripping over each other to create new rhythms out of phantom instruments that emerge from the group. Melt Cycles builds simple ideas in sequence only to have material to melt down and reform into new sections, new material, new molds. There is energy created and energy lost. Each instrument adds a new texture as it is dissolved into the sound of the whole. The rhythms disappear, the pitches collide, and as the music melts we are left waiting for what comes next from the raw materials of what once was.