Time Capsule (2021)

Score and parts digital download

In October, 2021, my writing of this piece and my performing with the great pianist Hiromi intersected in a beautiful way. I was inspired by her use of accents and displaced strong beats to create a sense of rhythmic clarity or confusion, and her ability to span different harmonic spectrums including bright/dark, rich/simple, and jagged/smooth, all of which were delivered in a way that I found to be accessible in real time.

This piece was whittled down from a cloud of many ideas and sketches that came to me unusually quickly and easily during this time of inspiration. The challenge was to unify the remaining ideas in the first and second halves, which I attempted through rhythmic displacement and accents that imply poly-meter time feels. The piece's basic instructions are easily adaptable to many musical interpretations, styles, and moods.

I congratulate the members of Catalyst Quartet for celebrating their 10 years together, a massive accomplishment for any quartet, and I thank them for giving me reason to create this work, of which I am quite proud.