exists in multiple arrangements (and I’m always open to new arrangements):

  • viola & piano

  • viola & vibraphone

  • set of duos for flute, clarinet, vibraphone, piano, viola & cello

duration: 15’

Score (viola & piano version) (PDF)

Winner of the 2016 Wild Shore New Music Call for Scores
2016 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards finalist

MOVEMENTS

i. anthony's nose
ii. taconic
iii. adams
iv. hudson
v. macedonia
vi. skyland
vii. timp brook
viii. mohonk

PROGRAM NOTE

Overlooks is comprised of eight short movements, each named after a specific geographical location. An original set of three (recording above) was written in the summer of 2009, and the following five were written in between other projects over the years, acting as a kind of journal of places I've been and memories I have of being in those places with specific people.  Any number of movements may be played in any combination or order.

Though one can certainly be struck by the physical beauty of a certain landscape, our memory of place is much richer than just a recollection of physical attributes. In this way, Overlooks is not an attempt to represent or depict landscape literally: rather, it is an attempt to capture moods, emotions and the pace of passing time I experienced in these places, my interior life mapped onto the wider, indifferent geography.

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS

Overlooks is comprised of eight short movements, each named after a specific geographical location. An original set of three (recording above) was written in the summer of 2009, and the following five were written in between other projects over the years, acting as a kind of journal of places I've been and memories I have of being in those places with specific people.  Any number of movements may be played in any combination or order.

Overlooks is a piece about our personal and subjective relationship with landscape. Each movement is named after a specific overlook or high place that I visited, some many times, others only once. Some are places where I experienced a turning point in a particular relationship; others are places where my mind simply seemed to clear in a significant way. Whatever the case, these details of my personal life have become inextricable from my memories of the places themselves. Both feeling and place were made richer, more resonant and more meaningful by their union.

Our human conception of landscape is intensely personal. Different places engender different emotional responses in us and satisfy different needs. Wilderness, high places, vast and empty landscapes: these places satisfy our need for reflection, for enlightenment, for observation. They teach us about scale, they teach us about perspective, they teach us about our place in and relative influence on the world around us. These landscapes gave me room to think and feel, and in doing so became not only a vehicle for emotion but a subject for it. These places became part of who I am, became a kind of home; in my mind, they reflect myself as I came to reflect them.

It’s no accident that the majority of the places charted in the piece are located in protected lands. From the ridges of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia to the Litchfield foothills of Connecticut, from the Hudson Highlands in New York state to the slope of Mt. Greylock State Reservation in western Massachusetts, each place was preserved by previous generations for the enrichment and enlightenment of future generations. I don’t suggest that my experience in these places was notable; to the contrary, I think that this is how we all experience place. But I offer the set as a personal journal, as an example of how one person has been shaped and influenced by the world around us.

Without having had these experiences in these places of wilderness and overwhelming natural beauty, would I have forgotten them? Would I have felt as deeply as I did?

First three movements written for Noah Fields, viola, and premiered on October 23, 2009 at Chapin Hall, Williamstown, MA. Sextet arrangement made for Wild Shore New Music and four movements were premiered on August 13, 2016 at Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, Alaska. Complete sextet version premiered by the University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Ensemble on October 20, 2016.

PERFORMANCES

October 23, 2009, Chapin Hall, Williamstown, MA. Noah Fields, viola; Brian Simalchik, piano.
January 7, 2012, ‘62 Center for Theatre and Dance, Williamstown, MA. Noah Fields, viola; Brian Simalchik, piano.
August 13, 2016, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, Alaska. Wild Shore New Music.
August 14, 2016, Bunnell Street Arts Center, Homer, Alaska. Wild Shore New Music.
August 23, 2016, Federal Hall, New York City, New York. Wild Shore New Music.
August 25, 2016, National Sylvan Theater, National Mall, Washington, D.C. Wild Shore New Music.
October 20, 2016, Natalie L. Haslam Music Center, Knoxville, Tennessee. University of Tennessee Contemporary Music Ensemble.
April 13, 2017, University of Tennessee at Martin. UTM Contemporary Music Group.
June 2020, June in Buffalo, University of Buffalo. Members of the Slee Sinfonietta.
September 29, 2020, June in Buffalo and the Center for 21st Century Music, University of Buffalo. Members of the Slee Sinfonietta.
December 3, 2022, University of Michigan/University of Virginia, Visualizing Telematic Music, simultaneously performed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Charlottesville, Virginia. Matt Albert, viola; I-Jen Fang, vibraphone.