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Performances

Sketchbook (2023)

For flute and piano

30 minutes

I. Lyrical, flowing (March 2019)
II. Still, fragile (November 2017)
III. Ecstatic, frenzied (July 2014)
IV. Lyrical, searching (March 2019)

For a long time I’ve kept a kind of audio journal of musical ideas. This takes the form of a folder on my desktop labelled “Sketches” which contains rough recordings of improvisations, experiments, the flotsam and jetsam of various projects, idle musings and other creative crumbs accumulated over the years. Many times I turn to these recordings when starting a new piece. Looking back it’s fascinating to see how ideas transform as they migrate across different projects, all the while retaining echoes of their origin.

The evolution of this piece, Sketchbook, has a similarly broken up quality. The outcome of a long, ongoing conversation with flutist Mike Avitable, the composition, drawing on material from own my wayward sketches folder, stretched from roughly 2019 to 2023. While finishing movements here and there, in between other projects, I reflected on how this piece, like that desktop folder full of recordings, is more than just a collection of ideas, but rather, it is a vessel for memories, resonance and echoes of my own journey over the same period of time.

Not surprisingly, there is a sprawling feel to the whole work. Over four movements the music travels across a wide terrain of mood and character. From the flowing lyricism of the first movement to the wild, rambunctious virtuosity of the third movement, Sketchbook makes no attempt to resolve the contradictions of its constituent parts. Instead, the movements sit resolutely next to each other, islands unto themselves, an archipelago of musical snapshots reflecting my own memories and experiences over the nearly ten year span they represent.

Sketchbook was premiered August 26, 2023 by Michael Avitabile and Adam Tendler at the Frank Suchomel Memorial Arts Center, Adamant, VT.

August 26, 2023 Frank Suchomel Memorial Arts Center, Montpelier, VT. Michael Avitabile & Adam Tendler.

“The first three were attractive and well-crafted of varying moods, but it was the fourth that proved a compelling personal journey with moods from passionate to tender…”

Jim Lowe, Rutland Herald