Program Notes

Forest fires are one of the most terrifying things on the planet. If out of control, they can devastate habitats, wildlife, and communities. However smaller, more controlled fires can help rejuvenate a forest by allowing undergrowth to flourish in absence of the sunlight-blocking trees.

Nature is an unending cycle of destruction and growth. In this piece I wanted to focus more on growth. I wanted to explore how nature returns and grows after devastation. The piece begins fractured and bleak with only fragments of material. We hear the crackling of fire, the choking black smoke, echoes of military drums, the faded sirens from firetrucks, the bells from a church not too far away. Gradually these sounds begin to change and the landscape morphs around us and begins to renew. The material that was fractured before is now chatter of songbirds, the drumming of woodpeckers, the scurrying about of chipmunks. These new sounds begin to exist alongside the old and they change together. At the end, these two worlds coexist and while the piece ends with momentum, as the landscape grows rapidly into the future, it is neither truly happy or sad as the landscape has been forever altered.

Performances 

December 1, 2025 John A. Paulson Center, New York University, Manhattan, NY. NYU Percussion Ensemble.