Letters for Lili

Program Note

When I showed an early draft of this piece to the composer Philip Cashian in fall of 2023, he described it as “obsessive.” I was inclined to agree; the piece opens with a melody that traces the same three notes over and over, set against a backdrop of murky chords, like a single idea held in razor-sharp focus while everything around it blurs. But it wasn’t until months later that I would realize how just right he was. In a way, the piece was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every choice became an opportunity for self-criticism. It was exhausting.

Winter came, and I didn’t touch the piece for a month.

With a deadline now looming, I needed to write quickly, and when I need to write quickly, I wear my influences on my sleeve. The piece’s instrumentation had always stemmed from Andrea Tarrodi’s wonderful Serenade in Seven Colours, which I heard for the first time at Oberlin in the spring of 2022, but it also recalled the wind band music I grew up playing in middle and high school. Stylistically, though, the piece owes far more to Lili Boulanger. Boulanger has always been something of a hero to me ever since I first heard a recording of her Psalm 130 “Du fond de l’abîme” (“From the depths of the abyss”). I marvel at the fact that even though much of her work is quite dark, there always seems to be a glimmer of light in her music. One of the most transcendent moments of Psalm 130 occurs on the word espère (“hope”). Even D’un matin de printemps (“Of a spring morning”), which had to be partially dictated to Boulanger’s sister Nadia, is playful and brimming with life.

Around a week before the piece was due, something suddenly clicked. I had been writing so much dark, brooding music that I hadn’t even stopped to consider the possibility that what the piece really needed was light. I stopped revising and started adding.

Spring came, and the piece was finished.

I’m not sure exactly what this piece is about anymore. But if you find this to be a dark piece, I hope you find in that darkness a glimmer of light.

Recording