Reflections

Length: ca. 15’30”
Instrumentation: violin, piano

The following piece was commissioned by the Eric Stokes Fund, Earth’s Best in Tune, and is inspired by three bird species that have relatively recently gone extinct. One small solace in this tragedy is that the vocalizations of these birds have been preserved through recordings. These recordings, which I accessed through EarthSky (https://earthsky.org), allowed me to transcribe their calls into musical notation and weave them into this composition.

At the heart of this piece is the conflict between nature and modern life, a struggle that has led to (and continues to cause) the decline of so much biodiversity. Throughout this work, but particularly in the third movement, this dichotomy is reflected in fierce, rhythmic sections that contrast with softer, more lyrical passages.

Each movement of this piece focuses on a different bird, but a final epilogue interweaves all of their vocalizations into a distant, echo-like conclusion. The birds featured in this piece are:

I. Kaua’i ‘o’o (Moho braccatus)
II. Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Campephilus principalis)
III. Bachman’s Warbler (Vermivora bachmanii)