Allemande

Written in 2022 for three harps (6 minutes)

This piece was written as part of a collaboration between the UNT composition division and the harp area – my last of such studently collaborations before getting my PhD. Jaymee Haefner, the harp instructor at UNT is a real champion for contemporary music, and someone who I deeply respect. Her students absolutely love her, and they all work so hard to make wonderful music together. This note isn’t an ad for the UNT harp program, but it is an endorsement of what a strong, healthy, and collaborative-focused department can look like when it is ran by someone who cares so much about their work… not to mention the fact that Jaymee is super in to contemporary music, and encouraged her students to work with us – which perhaps is partially how Kaitlin Miller and myself made so much music together over the years.

Of course, it's very easy for a composer’s default thought to be an aeolian harp, which I for one think is one of the lamest things ever and has really been done to death… so I did it too! With my version I was thinking about what else we can associate with an aeolian harp, rather than just representing the concept by itself. so for this I used three harps, thinking about them more so as wind chimes than just harps hanging in the air and I used pitches from specific wind chimes that I had recorded around my neighborhood, having them blend and dovetail together and what I think of as something of a dance – hence the title.