Looking for Answers
(2011) 20 min.
violin, cello, piano, electronics
Premiere
premiered February 5, 2011. 19th Annual Ussachevsky Festival, Lyman Hall, Pomona College, Claremont, CA
Performers
Mojave Trio: Sara Parkins, violin; Margaret Parkins, cello; Genevieve Feiwen Lee, piano
Movements
I. Frozen Questions
II. Contemplation
III. Dance
Reviews
. . . a truly blockbuster piece, and one of the best works I've ever heard that combines electronics with a traditional chamber music scoring and language.
. . .click for more. . .
—Carson Cooman,
Fanfare Magazine
. . .crystalline in certain moments and speckled with percussive detail at others.
. . .click for more. . .
—Ron Schepper,
textura.com
Notes
Looking for Answers augments a standard piano trio of violin, cello, and piano with electronically manipulated sounds derived from the same instruments. The sonorities and certain stubbornly recurring intervallic structures in “Frozen Questions” seek answers with serious but nearly paralyzing determination.
In a series of inwardly spiraling thoughts, “Contemplation” interacts with and is often swept away by an electronic fog of modified piano sounds. “Dance” shrugs its shoulders and turns its back on the quest, mixing dance rhythms from several continents and cultures. Perhaps this is the only appropriate answer.
Looking for Answers was written for the radiant Mojave Trio.
Publication
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