with what eyes? (2024)

Program Notes: with what eyes? is a short burst of energy, a miniature odyssey. It is a children's tale. Folky, ethereal, and thorny: A hyper-compacted machine turning on and running off. It’s a scherzo for a New York November: lively and far from autumnal, befitting of the unusual weather.

How should we see things? With the eyes of reason? The eyes of faith? The eyes of hope or those of pessimism? I don’t want to passively tolerate; I want to willfully affirm.

I thought about phenomenology when I wrote this. Probably a product of my Hegel readings. Sappho provided the title: fragment 162: “with what eyes?”

Recording Engineer: Alejandro Quiles

Recorded at the Peabody Conservatory on Nov 17, 2024.