Entangled Vines

2026

1.1.2.1 – 1.1.1.0 – Perc(2) – Strings

8min

Written for Alarm Will Sound as part of the 2026 Mizzou International Composer Festival

Artistic Concept:

This work unfolds through the tension between two persistent musical worlds. The first is lyrical, cyclical, and organic. It creates a distorted canon of recurring figures that return and renew like the annual bloom of spring growth. These returns are not repetitions but iterations, each return resembling that which precedes it, yet subtly altered by time, weather, and circumstance. Carried by winds, brass, and strings, these lines drift between tenderness and whimsy, at times dancing lightly before dissolving back into a familiar pattern.

Against this fragile ecosystem, the loud, penetrating sound of the snare drum conveys a sense of a more violent, militaristic repetition. From the opening measures, where the snare deviates from the ensembles 4/4 motion, it establishes its independent and unyielding force. These two disparate musical layers occasionally align, but more often form an uneasy coexistence, moving past one another without reconciliation.

As the piece develops, the snare’s influence invades other instrumentation. Piano, winds, and brass occasionally reinforce its rhythms, abandoning whimsy for insistence, gentleness for aggression. The work reflects cycles of organic renewal disfigured by naked belligerence. After seven minutes, both worlds simply come to a close. No victory declared; no resolution offered. While the piece must end, the fraught balance between the blooming lines and the relentless drum persists beyond the confines of its measures.