white space waiting
.program note
This work evolved after the death of my father. In 1999 he was diagnosed with cancer, and, after battling the disease for a year, he died in the Fall of 2000. During one of my last visits at home with him, he said something that at the time seemed trivial, but now sticks in my mind as one of my last remembrances of him. He and my brother were doing some accounting work and they each kept referencing the numerical figure "eleven-forty-sixteen." In writing this piece I translated that figure into the pitches B,C,C#,E, & F#. Though these pitches do not necessarily appear as the composition's leitmotive, they do appear in various guises throughout the compositional unfolding. This piece is not specifically a memorial to my father but rather an impression of what his absence has left within me: a space, waiting to be filled, that probably never will be again.
.listen (5.9 mb)
.instrumentation
1, 1, 1, 1 - 1, 1, 1, 0 - perc, pno, 6/6/4/4/2
.history
- April 4, 2002 - Duquesne Contemporary Ensemble, David Stock, cond. (premiere)
- July 23, 2003 - Wellesley Composers Conference, Efrain Guigui, cond.
- April 13, 2005 - University of Pittsburgh Chamber Orchestra, Roger Zahab, cond.