Rail Dynamics

Rail Dynamics is a large-scale work for string trio and fixed media inspired by a defunct rail line in northern New Mexico's high desert. Structured as ten landscape-style movements, Rail Dynamics explores the soundscapes of the northern New Mexican landscape while navigating the cultural and environmental impact of the rail in the Galisteo Basin, ultimately meditating on the slow deterioration of the rail line and the surrounding landscape's gradual reclamation of its previously inhabited spaces.

Intertwined among these explorations are images surrounding a tragic car accident I was in as a child that involved a collision with a train. Being by the rail in the deep quiet that characterizes so much of northern New Mexico's landscapes, however, helped me to re-contextualize my experience and facilitated my recovery; the slow dissolution of the rail into the high desert soil seemed to mirror the gradual vanishing of the scars on my face, and in a strange way I found a deep kinship with the basin, what remained of the rail, and their deeply nuanced relationship.

This piece is dedicated to my father, who, for weeks following the accident, would fall asleep at the foot of my hospital bed without mattress or pillow so I would not be there by myself.

(Rail Dynamics takes its name from a ground-breaking set of mid-century field recordings of locomotives in New York, championed today by the Smithsonian Folkways. The original Rail Dynamics can be found here: folkways.si.edu/rail-dynamics/sou…album/smithsonian as well as on Spotify and YouTube).

This work was premiered at The TANK Center for the Sonic Arts on September 22, 2024 by Jordan Grantonic (violin), Emma Reynolds (viola), and Peyton Magalhaes (cello). The TANK is well known for its uniquely intense acoustic resonance, in which sounds can last up to 50 seconds before fading away. More information about the TANK can be found here: tanksounds.org/