PROGRAM NOTE The word “Hyperbolae” has a double meaning: it refers to a geometric design, and is also the derivation of a Greek word meaning extravagant, or fanciful exaggeration. My work of the same name takes after both definitions. Its first few bars supply the materials for the entire composition, with each event thus being…
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PROGRAM NOTE Composing for a solo, essentially melody-line instrument such as the violin, is a challenge I have found myself drawn back to time and again over the years. Inscriptions for violin follows solo works written (in reverse chronology) for flute, cello, and clarinet since 1978. The challenge for me, all the more intriguing in…
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program note Concerto da Camera II is a work for six instruments which may be further grouped into three separate entities: clarinet, string quartet, and piano. In this combination, chosen by the work’s commissioning organizations (the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in conjunction with Mount Holyoke College), lies the work’s first challenge. While pairings…
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PROGRAM NOTE Apprehensions was one of nine works commissioned by WFMT, Chicago’s Fine Arts Radio Station, as part of a series examining the 20th century art song. It was my initial intention to group together a number of poems, when I came across Apprehensions by Sylvia Plath. Written in the last year of her life,…
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