Program Note:

The opening lines of American poet William Stafford's "The Way It Is" read: "There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change."

Stafford, to my mind, was speaking broadly about life, and our individual passions which endure through all of its turbulence. I found this poem while writing The Thread You Follow for the Zodiac Trio, and was struck not only by the broader message but by how it captured an important quality of the music I was writing. In traditional narratives, musical or otherwise, each new instance of an idea develops it in some way.  Here, musical threads - whether melodies, harmonies, motives, etc. - reappear throughout the piece in often identical forms, not themselves developed but transforming in meaning through ever changing contexts until the final thread floats away to nothing.