AN IMMENSITY OF LIGHT
for chamber ensemble

Duration: 7 minutes

Instrumentation: 2 violins, viola, cello, guitar, piano

Program Note:

When offered the commission to write this work for guitarist Pablo Sáinz-Villegas and the Agarita Chamber Players, the implicit directive was clear: create a work that communicates across cultures, that transcends barriers, and that shrinks the spaces that divide us. If there is an ethos that binds these luminous musicians, it is certainly this: music belongs to everyone, everywhere. My mind then went to a passage once quoted in an essay entitled Too Many Choices by Sir Michael Tippett:

“I know that my true function within a society that embraces all of us is to continue an age old tradition, fundamental to our civilization, which goes back into prehistory, and will go forward into the unknown future. This tradition is to create images from the depths of imagination and then to give them form, whether visual, intellectual, or musical. For it is only through images that the inner-world communicates at all: images of the past; shapes of the future; images of vigor for a decadent period; images of calm for one of true violence; images of reconciliation for worlds torn by division; and in an age of mediocrity and shattered dreams, images of abounding, generous, exuberant beauty.”

An Immensity of Light maps a geography that explores the probing of a soul in crisis. Beset with confusion, division, contradiction, and duplicity, the imagined frenetic protagonist expands outward by moving inward, slowing to the pace of deep, deliberate breaths in search of epiphany. Listening closely you will hear guitar and piano in conversation within an atmosphere painted by a string quartet that both anticipates and reflects the dialog. After an exchange of peace between guitar and piano, an ecstatic epiphany ensues, as if for a moment an immensity of light illuminates the troubled soul and its ruptured universe, and all flows together in a vision of hope, love, and reconciliation.

Concert Premiere: March 22nd, 2026