Duration: 6 minutes
Instrumentation: 2(2dbl picc)222/2231/timp/2perc/pno/strings
Program note:
I first brought Passages to life nearly eighteen years before this present offering as a duo for violin and piano. I composed that work in the early years of my teaching career at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, in the weeks prior to an annual campus service memorializing the life of the late Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Present in mind these months were the memories of loved ones who had passed away. Juxtaposed with these reminiscences was the ever-present, life-giving vitality of my two young children. In this state, the piece began to take shape as a short, lyrical litany meditating on the various passages of life--the exquisite moments of transition between the static, stable moments, be they expiration, renewal, or birth.
The current version for orchestra offers a chance to re-visit a milestone work from my past, recasting it in an array of new colors tempered by two intervening decades of refinement as a composer. Possibilities and potentialities for expression can now be realized in new ways, evincing new meanings, and new epiphanies. Beneath the added dimensions and layers of sound though, the meditation on life’s inevitable passages remains. This, then, is my offering of solidarity; a glistening votive candle of sonic supplication and memoriam.
Concert Premiere: April 28, 2026 in San Antonio, TX.
