Small Spaces

Instrumentation: Flute, Violin, Viola, Vibraphone

Length: 7 minutes

Commissioned by: Musiqa Houston, 2021

Premiered: MATCH | Houston, 2022

Small Spaces was written in the small space of my Brooklyn apartment in the winter of 2021. It was drawn from a short piano recording I made two years ago in the equally cozy confines of an apartment on the Upper West Side. Sometimes, the inspiration for a piece comes from a phrase, story, concept, or the timbres of a group of instruments playing together. With this piece, however, the initial seed of an idea came to me shortly after receiving the commission, long before the COVID-19 pandemic delayed all concerts and activities. I improvised the opening ostinato on the piano, with its irregular, bouncing rhythm, and recorded it as a message to my future self to be developed into this piece. I carried this one-minute recording around with me on my phone through four apartments, two relationships, and countless other musical projects, while my life and the world around me transformed dramatically. Looking back at that initial recording feels like a time capsule, and it inspired a very different piece in this current moment than it would have in 2019.