solo piano
1 minute
2004

This short piano piece was composed to grace the final page of an album of compositions written during my time studying at Tufts University and dedicated to John McDonald, who was such a decisive presence in my life at that time. The idea of presenting him with such an album was, as much as anything, a gesture towards the many albums of piano music he himself has collected over the years—variously, poetic, peripatetic, and idiosyncratic (John’s collections, that is, mine was much less varied). The different cells of music in Afterthought can be performed in whatever order the player chooses; indeed they might be repeated, varied, turned upside down, or even ignored. This freedom is, perhaps, reflective of the sense of musical boundlessness that my time with John inspired (and that my continued association with him continues to inspire).