Violin and Cello

Written in 2027 for violin and cello (7 minutes)

 I like this piece- it’s weird, it’s different, and it stands out from pretty much everything else in my list of works. It is an interesting case in that it’s only been played once but a lot of people have asked me about it, a lot of folks have listened to it, and I’ve been told by a number of folks that they like. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the piece myself; every time I come back to it, I get a lot of joy out of listening to it or looking at the goofy and poorly notated score, but it isn’t something that has stuck in my brain that much- perhaps considering when and how it was written.

I wrote this one in 24 hours for a 24|24 event where composers were randomly paired with performers and had 24 hours to write a piece and the players would then have 24 hours to learn and perform the work. So, the process was pretty spontaneous, and I don’t really remember anything about it other than staying up really late to finish the piece and sending messages to other folks doing the event and seeing how it was going for everyone else. Still, I wish I could tap into what I was thinking here more often- a focus on texture and timbre rather than pitch, and a weird sense of pacing and color. I constantly daydream about spending more time on these ideas, and now that I’m writing this note 6 years after the piece was written, I feel a little more energized to take that on.

 I think there’s something to it, and I think there’s something about outlier pieces that can teach you a lot about yourself and about artists you’re interested in. I’m not sure what to do with this one yet, but I keep it around.