25 minutes
2013

This piece was written for oboist Margaret Herlehy and Andrew Boysen and the University of New Hampshire Wind Symphony. I first heard Margaret perform at a John Cage festival at UNH in 2007. She played Cage’s Music for One (1984) and I was immediately struck by the extraordinary quality of her sound and her poise as a performer. When, several years later, we were colleagues on the music faculty at UNH, I was delighted to identify this opportunity to write for her. Dr. Boysen’s willingness to commission and program this highly abstract and demanding 25-minute work is a tribute to his generosity, open mindedness, and fearlessness. In some ways best known for his excellent compositions and untiring devotion to his students, his work on this piece demonstrated his impeccable and wide-ranging musicality. Like most of my works for larger forces, this piece demonstrates my ongoing interest in gradually shifting sonic blocks, color, density, and texture.