brush and bristle

Alan Mackwell

69 views

String Quartet

2024

15 min.

Cello

Viola

Violin

Program Notes: Between the Northern New Mexican townships of Maxwell and Raton is a rest stop on I-25. From the rest stop, you can take in the landscape you would otherwise see only in brief flashes while traveling down the interstate; tall grasses extend across a vast, open plain, forming a restless blanket of bowing brush, junipers, and cholla. The corresponding soundscape is similarly nuanced, yet deeply subtle; the tall grasses very quietly bristle and shake in tandem with the wind-like gestures resonating from the interstate itself, as if a constant reminder of mankind’s transgressions on this otherwise deeply still and commanding space. Over the years, the view from the I-25 south rest stop has become strangely iconic in my mind. Not only is it one of the only places on I-25 that feels deeply remote and removed from the cacophony of civilization, but it instantly conjures for me this profound sense of meditation and stillness. However, on the backend of the recent wildfires in the Northern New Mexico region as well as the Texas Panhandle, both of which were magnified by the influx of tall grasses, it has become challenging not to see the I-25 S rest stop’s landscape as potential for similar devastation. Brush and bristle serves to reconcile these competing visions by fluttering between sonic simulations of the grassy soundscape and its imagined apocalyptic counterpart.
Ensemble Name: Greg Abrell, Jordan Grantonic, Allyson Stibbards, Peyton Magalhaes