Composer’s Note

The PSO is the first symphony orchestra that I got to know well. The ensemble was present for so many of the first time I heard pieces live, and in my various combinations of being in Pittsburgh over the years, I’ve gotten to know the orchestra as an audience member, on stage singing with the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh, and also as a member of the operations team for a whirlwind gap year of administrative experience.

In 2011 I tagged along on a portion of the PSO’s European tour, and I while the whole thing was an exceptional glimpse into a world of making music that I might never have gotten to know otherwise, one specific memory came dashing back to me when this new work for Discovery and Drinks was pitched my way.

While in Luzern, Switzerland, I had a morning off and decided to go on a run. I had just taken up running and was excited about the ways that I had been able to explore the world on foot, having also logged miles in Wiesbaden and Vienna on that tour. I had been to Luzern before, when I was about 8 years old, for Fasnacht, Switzerland’s version of Mardi Gras. As a child, I remember watching brass and drum bands wind through the streets, over the covered bridge, wearing the scariest masks and fur costumes. It was absolute chaos- no parade route, no single set repertoire that everyone plays together, just a glorious cacaphony of celebration and confetti.

But in 2011 when I was there, I took a path less traveled, leaving the city and following a wander weg (trail or footpath) that skirted Lake Luzern and pivoted up into the hills. The further I got from the hotel, the more residential, then rural, then forested things became. The path turned into dirt and occasionally provided a small sign that literally just said “wander weg,” and in my pre-iPhone life, I was relying on the skills I had learned as a kid growing up in rural Connecticut to keep a sense of direction and remember how to get back.

I didn’t register it then, but I think back on that moment now with great nostalgia; the journey of leaving the activity of the city and disappearing into the woods is a theme that has run rampant across my life in the 14 years since, and I often crave that transition from activity to quiet, where everything fades away and there is a deepening of my breath, where I feel like I can hear further.

With its short, 5-minute duration, Timelapse of a Wanderweg is a compression of that transition from chaos to quiet.