Cresting

for wind instrument
completed October 2025
duration: ~7’00”
commissioned by Kirby Leitz

Program Note

Cresting is an experiment in indeterminacy in which the musical parameters typically notated on the page (e.g. pitch, rhythm, dynamics) are left to the performer’s imagination and discretion, while those usually left open to interpretation (e.g. timbre, articulation) are notated meticulously. The piece is also an exploration of the experience of grief: the way the unpredictable rhythms of sorrow burst in on the human heart and impinge upon the ordinary continuation of life, which goes on even though it seems unthinkable.