Of all the ways to make music, the one I love most is improvisation. It is within this realm of interacting with and responding to the unknown, skipping stones over a river of silence, that language is born; phrases, melodies, textures reveal themselves through dialogue between sound and stillness. Many of my happiest musical experiences have come this way, whether as a listener, composer or performer.

When A Far Cry commissioned me to write something for a concert focusing on Improvisation, I decided to forgo the safe route of composition and conventional notation, and instead to design a guided improvisation for ensemble. In a sense, I wanted to place the musicians in a similar space where I find myself most inspired — listening, responding, developing a vocabulary. There are no notes, rhythms or harmonies to work from — there is no “music” to read – rather, the piece is a large-scale framework from text-based instructions, comprised of 15 sections (cells). Some of the cells are pretty open while others are very specific. It is my hope — and here I feel as one of the “Three Little Pigs” — that the structure of the piece will stand. Only the wolf knows.

I’m very grateful to the members of A Far Cry for their trust, their gift, for going along this path with me and contributing their incredible talents to this premiere.