Program Note:

I’ve never written a programmatic piece, but I always like to think of my works as narratives. My hope is to lead the listener through a journey of ideas as a piece unfolds, following their transformations and juxtapositions, so that by the end there is a satisfying sense of consequence and purpose in the music – where we end is not where we started.  Written at the Brevard Summer Festival in 2018, Two Stories was inspired by both the serenity of the location and the energetic vitality of the festival.  

The piece opens on single G in the soprano saxophone which is quickly revealed as the reference point for the entire first story.  As the harmony changes around it, the constantly sustained G frames everything we hear. We lose it from time to time, but always find our way back, remaining blissfully suspended in a tranquil soundscape tinged with nostalgia, until a rapid trading off of the G across the quartet propels us into a radically different second story.  

The focus shifts to unity and fragmentation as the quartet moves through a relentless stream of aggressive figurations.  Two simple motifs - one rising and one falling - generate most of the material by finding themselves in constantly shifting expressive roles.  Two Stories ends with an intense and fiery tutti run, as far as possible from how it began.