Breathless

The piece was written for Third Coast Percussion while I was living abroad in Quito, Ecuador. The title is a nod to French New Wave cinema, where the jump-cut was popularized as an expressive tool. In my recent music, I have become fascinated with the idea of a “jump-cut” as a formal idea. I’m attracted to the energy that sudden, abrupt changes can infuse in the music and in the listening experience. It’s a piece that never rests, that feels constantly on the verge of exploding; in the music, there are fast shifts and unexpected juxtapositions between batteries of volatile rhythmic material and the scintillatingly mysterious sounds of the melodica’s fluttered pitch clusters. There are transformations from non-metric relays at the outset to very groove-driven patterns, while gradual shifts in emphasis from woods to metals to skins simultaneously unfold.

This was recorded live at Northwestern University by Third Coast Percussion in March 2022.