Oculus for string orchestra
(1997)
Composed for the New Century Chamber Orchestra. This was the first large scale piece I composed after not having composed for 6 years. After leaving Curtis, despite applying to graduate programs in both viola and composition, I ultimately decided to quit being a composer “cold turkey” and just be a violist. My graduate studies took me to SUNY Stony Brook, which had one of the most outstanding and robust contemporary/new music performance practice programs graduate programs at that time, so that is where I decided to go. If I wasn’t going to compose new music, I was certainly going to play new music and play it as well as I could. After my time at Stony Brook, I immediately moved out to San Francisco because I had the “bright idea” I needed to start anew somewhere where I could do whatever it was I was going to do on my own. So I left NYC behind - everything and everyone I knew, and went somewhere I knew nothing about, and knew but a single person who ended up moving away about 2 months after my arrival. With $3000 in hand, picking up odd jobs, playing a lot of auditions, slowly getting gigs and students, and surviving on food stamps for nearly a year, my life began to form into that of a freelancer. One of the first and most important new music concerts I played was Andrew Imbrie’s Serenade for Flute, Viola and Piano. I got to meet Mr. Imbrie, who taught at UC Berkeley. We talked at length, he asked about me, I told him I had been a composer, he asked why I was not one any longer, a long conversation ensued, and he and his wife invited me to his home to show him my old music. After much contemplation, I accepted, and that was the beginning of one of the kindest, most unassuming transformative gifts in my life: Mr. Imbrie was not so much a teacher, but a simple intellectual mentor conversationalist with whom I could eventually gain the courage to compose again. This piece would not have been possible were it not for Mr. Imbrie. It is dedicated to him, and to the commissioners, Paula and John Gambs. It is written for the New Century Orchestra a wonderful group that I was lucky to be a member of for 16 years. There are 8 movements:
1. Epigram
2. Echoes
3. Litanies
4. Chorale
5. Stretto
6. Cenotaph
7. Strata
8. Epigram: Final
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