• Premiere: June 17, 2009 / Church of St. John the Evangelist / Boston, Massachusetts / Sasha Callahan and Olga Litvintsova, violin; Philip Rush, viola; Leo Eguchi, 'cello

• Instrumentation: 2 Violins, Viola, Violincello

• Duration: 20'

Program Note

Written in 2008-2009 in Hyde Park, Massachusetts, this piece was my first major foray outside of the sacred choral sphere. Intended to be an instrumental step in a carefully laid out plan to get me from the choir stalls to the opera stage, this piece opened me up to a rich field of chamber writing that continues to grow. 

The piece is straightforward and traditional in its form and format. A by-the-book sonata-allegro first movement lays out all the themes used throughout the piece. A rollicking scherzo, a lullaby adagio, and an aggressive rondo round out the other three movements. 

This piece was premiered on the concert series at the Church of St. John the Evangelist, in Boston.  St. John's concert series was a hidden gem in the music community, and offered me several opportunities to premiere and workshop new pieces, including choral works, song cycles, and fragments of my "Mad Libretto" opera. The players were all gifted colleagues at the Brookline Music School, where I was an administrator and music theory instructor.