for Percussion Trio and Electronics, 2020 - 10”

• vibraphone (2)

• glockenspiel

• low drum (2)

• bass drum

Commissioned by Zach Wilson, Malcolm Taylor, and Ben Hausman.

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There are moments that I, and hopefully everyone has that are so deeply ingrained in our person that exist as a mental image, or for me like a moving still-life. For me, as a child, I distinctly remember a spring morning playing in my parents’ front yard. I can still picture the blue plastic seats of the swing set, the bright yellow slide, and if I try hard enough, I can remember the sweet but pungent smell of the Chesapeake Bay. This is a memory that holds particular credence to the significance of this piece: Zach Wilson and I lived on the same street. This particular early spring day, for which there is no exact date, is something that I don’t think he might remember; but he might remember the feeling of the type of spring day that was so distinct to Chesapeake Beach, at least in the way that I remember it. In that sense, the very nature, the construction, the impetus for this piece is to share a moment with someone.

And there are times when I try to imagine myself there again, and that is what Passive Moments is: it is a reminder of that moment. It is distinctly not a re-creation, since such things are impossible with the way that human memory works; but it is a reminder of how a moment can feel.