Composer’s Note

This piece was a commission from my colleague Jeffrey Marshak while I was pursuing graduate study in music composition at Carnegie Mellon University. In the time between Jeff asking me to write a piece for his Artist Diploma recital and when I started composing, Jeff’s father passed away quite suddenly. When he asked for the piece to take on a role of memorializing his father, I couldn’t say no–but I was also left wondering how I was supposed to write a new work in memory of someone that I didn’t know personally. I asked Jeff to share with me some memories of and stories about his dad, and one thing he shared was a long-standing love for a particular television show, whose title, as I write this note thirteen years after the original composition, I can’t remember. But the first movement of the sonata, “Voyage,” takes its motivic material from those opening credits as a way to invoke a sonic imprint of Jeff’s father. It is a percolating anticipation of the sea; gestures swing like a lighthouse cycles in and out of view: unfolding with a gesture of natural momentum, but bold and bright. The second movement, “Prayer,” is a slow, exposed meditation on long, deep breaths and patience. The oboe moves in and out of alignment with the piano, working to slide into a comfortable, stable place, facing the unpredictable frictions of grief.

I revisited this piece in 2023 as I have since returned to Carnegie Mellon University now as a faculty member. The changes made are small but impactful, smoothing out my ideas  with the acquired knowledge of a dozen extra years of additional work and practice as a composer. Jeff’s original commission and request are still there, more present and vivid now than they were at the piece’s premiere.