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a m
Date Completed:June 1, 2021
Duration:17 minutes
Instrumentation:open instrumentation: for any number of solo performers in conjunction with larger groups of winds and strings.
First Performance:the first video recording with members of the University of Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra was posted in a premiere broadcast performance on June 1, 2021 on YouTube.
Comments:The open orchestration allows for any number of independent soloists, along with larger wind and string groups, to perform - either virtually via internet platforms or in person - in venues of any size including possibilities of expansion throughout a field, neighborhood, or city. A schedule and placement-diagram is prepared anew for each performance. They various soloists and groups are situated within a structure that, with careful planning, should allow each performer to be heard both as an individual and part of a greater collective. The central form is held together by the performance by strings in seven parts of seven distinctively voiced chords, each chord placed strategically over the span of the 17 minute duration of the work.
Program Notes:The extraordinarily difficult year of 2020-21, something I couldn't have imagined in 2019, has exposed many devastating conditions and currents throughout the world. In wrestling with a need for life-affirming action musicians have found ways to play together from a distance. After four years of creative silence I started composing again in January of 2021 to do something to support the musicians in the University of Pittsburgh's Symphony Orchestra. While the strings enjoyed playing much of the repertoire I felt that the woodwinds, brass, and percussionists had particularly been challenged by the isolation. I asked each player for a list of requests - favorite works or styles they enjoy playing - and have tried to compose gratifying music personally tailored with each player's character and interests in mind.

The first chord starts from where a favorite earlier work, Evening on 57th Street, left off. I felt the end of that work signaled the dawn of a new day filled with promise. a m could actually be seamlessly connected from that work: I imagine a very large and diverse city regenerating itself, each one true to the task and forming a curious, surging harmony that works precisely because of that great diversity.