Still Lives

Screens are everywhere now. Looking around a crowded room, chances are that you will see many people standing or sitting next to each other with their faces buried in their phones – the great contradiction being that technology interconnects us more than ever before, but our lives become isolated and still by tapping in to that connection. In Still Lives, that contradiction is played out in two contrasting movements. The first movement, reunion, is anxious and blurry, featuring an obsessive rising gesture introduced by the violins. The second movement, wire tap, crackles with energy as pitches are gradually added to the open-fifth gesture of the strings, a buzzing mass of overtones and noise. Still Lives was completed in July of 2014 in Brevard, North Carolina, and is dedicated to Lee and Hannah Curtis and their son, Shepard, who was born during the first revisions of this piece.