arborealisms (2021)

General Information

Commissioner: Yale Norfolk Summer Music Festival
Written: March – May, 2021
Duration: ca. 7’
Instrumentation: vln + vcl + pf (piano trio)

Performance History

July 2, 2021: The Mammoth Trio (Elly Toyoda [violin], Ashley Bathgate [cello], and Lisa Moore [piano]) on the Yale Norfolk Summer Music Festival’s virtual New Music Workshop concert (Digital Premiere)

Perusal Score

~ This score below is intended for perusal purposes only, and may not be used for performance. To obtain performance materials, please click here. Thank you! ~

Program Note

In my sophomore year of college, I decided on a whim to take a class called Drawing Architecture. As a composer, I deal with issues of temporal form constantly: I was particularly interested in exploring ideas of form in space, a medium of expression most of us composers work in quite a bit less.

Numerous assignments for the class required us to draw public and urban spaces, many of which had trees or other greenery surrounding the buildings we were studying. In the process of making these drawings, and in reviewing my peers’ work, I realized how essential these plants were in vitalizing and energizing the spaces they are surrounded by. The fractal and radially symmetrical and organic forms of trees are a distinct and forceful juxtaposition against a human-made backdrop of parallel and perpendicular lines, 90 ̊ corners, and perfectly even and constructed masonry jointing. But there is such a joy in this interplay between natural and manmade! Even in the despicably urban, nature finds hold and thrives.

arborealisms (a portmanteau of my own creation) is made of continuous three parts: roots, trunk, leaves. Through the entire piece, the three instrumentalists are constantly playing off of and around the beat pattern of the music, often in ‘symmetrical rhythms’: rhythms that pulse at regular, unchanging intervals. The work rejoices in the organic, in the arboreal, and in nature’s power to create beauty in the unlikeliest of places.