Walk with me, my joy (2022)
24 minutes
flute, cello, percussion (marimba and vibraphone), piano
Premiere: March 2022 - Constellations Chamber Concerts, Washington, DC
Commissioned by Constellations Chamber Concerts
PROGRAM NOTE
My quartet “Walk with me, my joy” unfolds as a spacious series of reflections on the Irish folksong “Shule Agra,” which was sung to me as a lullaby from my earliest childhood. Some sections of the work are somewhat like a traditional theme and variations, where the melody’s contours and phrases can be clearly heard. Other times, there are longer, rhapsodic passages, where motives from the poignant theme are isolated and become one strand among many, refracted among the four instrumental parts. The work lives in a world of memory, specifically the blurry mental images of our childhood that we carry with us forever. There is a paradox in their strength: despite the fact that we often cannot clearly recreate them in our imagination, they shape us so fundamentally. My consciousness bears the musical imprint of “Shule Agra” in just this way.
In this piece, I am contemplating those foundational experiences in life that enable us to rise up and walk on our own. Most of all, I am thinking of my parents.
MEDIA
Sarah Frisof, flute; Christine Lamprea, cello; Ian Rosenbaum, percussion; Daniel Pesca, piano