Commissioned by the Fortunata Duo: Laura Armstrong & Alicia Kosask.
This piece was motivated by an episode from undergraduate school,
so very long ago: It was the first day of classes about a year in.
Having departed West Hall, I made my way to East Hall, a building
few of us even knew existed. Between traveling completely across
campus and having to locate the building and the room, I arrived a
minute or two late. I was relieved to see that I was fine: I joined a
crowd of people outside of the classroom who were waiting for the previous
class to vacate. Eventually, it dawned on us that the group inside the
closed room was actually our class, and that the appalling excuse for a
teacher had started the class early, on the first day, on the fringe of
the campus, knowing that half of the attendees had not yet arrived.
That should have been sufficient information for me, but I persisted.
I endured two weeks of horror before choosing to do something I had never
done, nor have ever repeated: I dropped the class. Later in the term,
chance found me approaching that same building at what happened to be the
time of that class. Through the open window I heard The Voice. It sent
my heart careening with the joy of freedom in a way that has stuck with me.
This piece is about that feeling and, more generally, the feeling that
comes from having finally leapt headlong from a soul-killing situation
into the light of possibilities. It begins with joy, pauses for a bit
of reflection, and then flies into ecstatic abandon.
Scored for Scored for Flute and Soprano Sax. Performance time: 2:30
