musica pyralis (2023)

[2222*.4221.timp+3 perc.harp**.piano.strings]
Duration: 10’

*fl. 2, ob. 1, ob. 2., cl. 1, cl.2, and bsn 1 require harmonicas
**harp is detuned a quarter-tone

Co-commissioned by the Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Santa Rosa Symphony, Erie Symphony, and Ann Arbor Symphony, with support from New Music USA’s Amplifying Voices Program

World premiere February 16, 2024 at Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts, Pittsburg, PA
Pittsburg Symphony Orchestra; Manfred Honeck, conductor

View the score

Most of my music tries to filter the sights and sounds of my surrounding environment through the instruments I’m writing for, kind of like a musical sieve. In musica pyralis, the orchestra sings the summer soundscape of my new home in rural Connecticut, where, thanks to little light pollution, fireflies bashfully illuminate the nightly cacophony of frogs and crickets and many other little creatures. Nature is the best orchestrator — despite the saturated soundscape, each noise-maker can hear and be heard as they occupy distinct registral and timbral niches. I try to capture a glimpse of this miraculously transparent density in this (mostly) brisk concert opener, and set to song the gently omnipresent twinkle of the phontinus pyralis.