Snow Fragments
for flute, bass clarinet, violin, cello, piano (2021, 8 min.)
performers
Cameron Cullen - flute Alex Dergal - bass clarinet Youngji Kim - violin Stephen Perkyns - cello Yunling Zhang - piano Aaron Israel Levin - conductor accolades Honorable Mention: left coast ensemble composition contest 2022 https://www.leftcoastensemble.org/composition-contest |
note
Snow Fragments is a response to Hans Abrahamsen's seminal work Schnee. In 2020 and 2021, I spent an extended amount of time in my hometown in Saint Paul, Minnesota where I lived through a true and bitter midwest winter for the first time in a long time. That experience inspired me to write a piece that, like Abrahamsen's, evokes the imagery and sensations of winter, along with my particular memories of growing up in Minnesota. At the same time, I also wanted to deal with the increasing fragmentation of winter by climate change. The snow and ice that was once guaranteed by the season is now divided into intermittent periods of thawing and freezing -- a new reality that is in stark contrast to the winter of my youth. I wanted to embody this sense of nostalgia and fragmentation within the musical material itself, while also expressing my complex affection for winter. |