false light

for string quartet (2022)
c. 16 minutes

“false light” was written for the JACK Quartet, and was recorded by the ensemble at Ocktaven Studios in Mt. Vernon, NY on September 23, 2023. It received its official premiere by the KIMM Quartet at the University of Michigan on December 2, 2023.

Movements:

1. mysteriously//agitated — [c. 4 minutes]

2. pacing//shocking — [c. 5 minutes]

3. mysteriously, yet, with an ounce of familiarity // weak, exhausted — [c. 7 minutes]

“i like to think that on the flower you gave me when we loved the far- departed mouth sweetly-saluted lingers…”

What I consider to be one of my largest issues as a person is my inability to not fall within a daydream. Constantly slipping away from reality, I regularly found myself not paying attention to my surroundings or what anyone was saying. I can just be very focused on the many ways I would’ve done things differently in the past or what could have been. This work mimics the process of slowly seeping into, and sometimes fighting, an emerging daydream through wispy, airy textures that emerge from non-existence.

This work uses excerpts of E.E. Cummings’ “Amores VI”, which is in the public domain.