seeking all that’s still unsung - a collection of musings on circles & songs & tunes & speeches for string quartet

(2023-24)

seeking all that’s still unsung is a string quartet that was written for and is dedicated to the members of the Lydian Quartet (past & present), an ensemble that has been extremely supportive and central to my creative life for more than three decades. I am especially grateful to Judy Eissenberg, who thought of this project, saw it through, and has always been truly generous, if not fully honest to the point of 'being real' about how life & art works. This work was made possible by the Chamber Music America Classical Commissioning Program, with generous funding provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

This piece is inspired by the world that surrounds us in its "current" present, both visible and acknowledged and unseen and unacknowledged. It contemplates what is missing from our world, because the passage of time has brought about evolution, extinction, forgetting, erasure, and obliteration. And it imagines what changes are possible as we move into our future. Specifically, the future of a string quartet playing this piece. Also, if any piece of music of mine can "be" about something in my life, then this piece pretty much tells my story; it is, in effect, my life in music.

The movements to the piece are:

I - chorale canons

II - 504 Wood Street (remix 1)

III - blah, blah, blah (after Greta Thunberg)

IV - I'm Going Home (remix 2)

V - the rub: die Torschlusspanik

VI - Can I Leave You? (remix 3)