undertow

Throughout Western music history, especially leading up to the Baroque era, there were many tuning systems that were used by composers, such as Nicola Vicentino or Francesc Valls, before a standard 12-tone tuning system was more largely implemented. Upon listening to some of these “microtonal” compositions, I wanted to take their harmonic language but interpret it in a contemporary string quartet style. Another piece that was inspiring to me was Chaya Czernowin’s Ayre: Towed through plumes, thickets, asphalt, sawdust, and hazardous air I shall not forget the sound of.  The idea of negative space and the visceral feeling of an object being dragged along a surface created by the textures in Czernowin’s piece felt synonymous and almost innate to the quartertonal tuning system used in my piece. Harmonic form from Saad Haddad’s String Quartet No. I  was also inspiring to me. Altogether, the atmosphere created by these influences became somewhat arcane; like a modern dictionary of a long-lost musical language.

performed in Auer Hall at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana in November 2024