Minerva’s Pools for string nonet
(1999)
Composed for the New Century Chamber Orchestra (NCCO), this piece is in a single movement that is divided into 13 sections. The work is in an elaborate arch form, which I was obsessed with at the time. It uses the interval of a falling third as the “cell” from which the entire piece ripples out and is generated from. The piece was commissioned by NCCO, with the generous funding of a commission award from the Koussevitzky Foundation of the Library of Congress. I composed the piece over the Summer 1999 at MacDowell: I was in an intense space back then, it was an intense summer, I was running 8 miles a day; it is an intense piece.
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