Where the Quiet Rests (2018-19)
for clarinet, mixed ensemble, and electronics
…where the quiet rests, sink down and learn to dwell.
For some, the expulsion from Eden isn’t an event which occurred in the past, rather, one which occurs in each moment – one which fills each moment with the potential for community, history, otherness. Where the Quiet Rests is just one possible thinking of a particular relationship between community and exile.
Beginning as a discovery of the performance space – an un-covering of the distance between the individual musicians and loudspeakers – in the 4th and central section of the work, the group moves as a whole.
Ending with an exodus – in the 6th and final section of the work, the clarinet resonates back into itself. Having opened the space and, for a moment, lead the ensemble, its gives way to a sung-voice – both inside and outside of the hall.
…let me yearn to never see you; to live gladly in the uneasy peace. (Barton, Poems)
premiered by wasteLAnd
Curt Miller (clarinet), Andrew McIntosh (violin), Linnea Powell (viola), Ashley Walters (violoncello), Matt Barbier (trombone), Luke Storm (tuba), Nicholas Deyoe (conductor), John Pax (live electronics), Madison Greenstone (pre-recorded audio), James Bean (audio engineer)
Harvard University, May 25th, 2019
Winner of the 2021 Adelbert W. Sprague Prize for Composition
Finalist for the 2020 Art Music Awards’ ‘Chamber Work of the Year’, this work was described as
“music of our time. […] peaceful but also with a sense of anxiety, a sense of poignancy [… in which the] spatial and electroacoustic format shows strong structural coherence and the composer's command of the pitch and harmonic language is highly commended. A work that is spacious with subtle development, clarity and elegance, [with] just the right elements, and not a note too many. Innovative new music presented in a very beautiful, well-crafted and assured way.”
