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| Doubles Keening | |
| Date Completed: | January 10, 1991 |
| Duration: | about six minutes |
| Instrumentation: | flute, oboe, clarinet, horn (also plays a low tom) and bassoon |
| First Performance: | Solaris Quintet, March 3, 1991 Akron Ohio |
| Program Notes: | Doubles Keening for wind quintet was composed between 2nd and 10th of January 1991 in memory of Timothy Walsh for the Solaris Quintet who first performed it March 3rd, 1991 in Akron, Ohio. My closest friend Timothy Walsh died on October 31, 1990 of complications from AIDS at the age of 33. Our relationship was nearly that of twins - we often barely conversed in half phrases and flickering glances - and for a decade he was Muse to what Art I posess. He died gradually, as if by subtraction: first the loss of feeling in a leg, then a hand that no longer held, and then his ability to speak began to evaporate - the words going out like sputtering candles. This music is both a funeral wail and a reaching after the fleeting shadows of life; in it I once again hold him closely in my arms and hear his soft, ardent voice. |