WHY ARE YOU NOT ANSWERING? (2010)

A couple years ago a friend of mine received about 100 emails in error. They had been sent to a man with the same name as my friend and contained a meticulous record of every communication this person had sent or received within a popular online dating site. I found these emails to be hilarious, moving, and bizarre. Both the content and the strangeness of how they entered my life have led me to refer back to them again and again in my work. For these pieces I took the first line of two emails–My friend, I understand 100%, I have no girlfriend, and Why are you not answering? I do not wish to play games–and composed musical responses to each statement. As much as possible I tried to imagine the emotional impetus for each email. Ultimately these pieces became a set of songs without words, each one underscoring the moment in which this unknown man composed his emails.

This piece was commissioned for the 2010 Bang on a Can Summer Institute and premiered July 26, 2010 by Evan Ziporyn, Clarinet, Lisa Dowling, Bass, Owen Weaver, Drums, Karl Larson, Piano, Nora Krahl, Cello, Daniel Reyes Llinas, Guitar, and Robert Honstein, Glockenspiel, at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA.

April 29, 2023 George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Elliott Godinez.

March 19, 2012 Red Note New Music Festival, Illinois State University, Normal, IL. Color Field Ensemble.

August 20, 2011 Color Field Festival, Overture Center for the Arts, Madison, WI. Color Field Ensemble.

October 21, 2010 Cla-Zel Theatre, Bowling Green OH. Colorfield Ensemble, Bowling Green New Music Festival

October 11, 2010 Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY. Members of Yale Philharmonia, Sleeping Giant and Yale in New York.

July 26, 2010 MASSMoCA, North Adams, MA. Fellows from the 2010 Bang on a Can Summer Institute.