Piccolo Pocket Concerto for piccolo and posse (2018)
Program Note
This “pocket concert” was composed for flutist Linda Jenkins. The piece showcases the piccolo’s full expressive capacity in all its registers and grounds it with the members of a carefully selected ensemble of oboe/english horn, french horn, cello, and piano.
All the material for this piece comes from a trove of sketches generated from a single theme, which I created in the summer of 2017. My days between spring and fall academic terms were filled with the joys of menial labor at the University’s maintenance and grounds department. Disconnected from my work as a composer and scholar, I sometimes felt a sense of hopelessness, and I feared for the uncertainty of my career as an obscure young composer, watching my peers enjoy summers replete with rich musical experiences in far away lands. The gloom of the opening sections reflects these feelings. The sketch stagnated until I settled on the piccolo as the protagonist of this work. The piccolo’s arrival is like a beam of light that pierces the gloom, heralding something greater, an immense abundance that lies within, an endless source of energy: the creative spirit. This spirit transforms the sublime melancholy of the opening section into something expressive, multifaceted, and powerful. The opening theme returns at the very end, finally stated by the piccolo, as a question: where can this unceasing spirit lead?