I can't really grasp what it means to be simultaneous

Written in 2022 for four guitars two contrabasses (12 minutes)

Written for Nuntempe Ensamble (Argentina) with Edgardo Vizioli and Carlos Vega (contrabass) for the 2022 Distat Terra Festival at Cooperativa Agricola de Luis Beltrán in Mendoza, Argentina. Comissioned by José Manuel Serrano and the Distat Terra Festival.

This piece came about in one of my favorite ways. José and I met virtually during the online version of the 2020 Composers Conference as Fromm Fellows - I really liked José’s music, and highly recommend the piece Cenizas. We never had the opportunity to meet in person, but through lectures and music exchanges, I got familiar with his work, and absolutely loved his Ruiseñor en el reflejo. In 2022, I received an email from José describing the festival, Nuntempe, and it all sounded great. He said: “the program will include pieces by Scelsi, William Dougherty, Maria Cecilia Villanueva, Pauline Oliveros and -why not- a new piece by you” Why not? Let’s do it!

I needed this piece to be a little different. I could feel myself starting to pull in a direction that explored pulse and rhythm and counterpoint – something I’ve been exploring through 2022 and 2023 more and more – but really, this piece needed to be different because I had already written so much guitar music. My album I am not Here (2022, NCTMMRN) covered all the guitar music I wrote in 2019-2020 and it had been some time since I came back to the instrument. Honestly, I was basically uninterested in writing guitar music; I felt I had said what I wanted to say for the time being and certain chord-shapes and gestures started to get more than a little stale for me. However, between this commission and a commission from Kyoto’s Rosetta Art’s Collective for a piece for piano, guitars, mandolins, saxophone (Rain Smell (While I'm Elsewhere), 2022), I had to dive back in and find a new way.

Not to sound too conceited, but I honestly really like this piece: I think it captures all the ideas I wanted to explore and opened up a new relationship for myself and the instrument. The piece explores harmonics, harmony, time, tempo, ensemble performance in ways that I hadn’t quiet challenged myself with yet and I’m not sure I was entirely prepared for. It takes me somewhere new.