Mirror-Laden

Mirror-Laden was written for the 2024 soundSCAPE Composition and Performance Exchange in Blonay Switzerland. The piece was revised in 2025 for a performance in Rochester's Hatch Recital Hall. Mirror-Laden is a potpourri of different characters, moods, and figures. I tried in constructing this piece to maximize the contrasts both within sections and in-between sections while still weaving a formal thread that would bind the whole piece in a sensible and self-consistent fashion. I have been thinking a great deal recently about the discrete sections that appear in various rock, pop, and metal genres, and I wanted to find an approach to my own music that would integrate this kind of compartmentalization. I found that by vastly simplifying my pitch language and by more intently focusing on rhythmic variation and dynamic fluctuation, I could more intuitively create chunks of music that, while rather dissimilar on the surface, are united through specific formal and character elements. The “mirror” in the title derives from the oversaturation of inversion throughout the piece, whether with respect to pitch, rhythm, character, or timbre. As I discovered the pitch sequences that I would use in Mirror-Laden, I noticed a striking similarity of one sequence to the opening melody of “Subject and Reflection”—a short piece from the sixth book of Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos. Having found this uncanny resemblance, I decided to use this idea of reflection as a foundation for each section of the piece.

Performed at Hatch Recital Hall in Rochester, NY in April 2025.