BREATHLESS - 2022
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Program Note
When I started writing Breathless, I had a couple of educational goals, but mainly, I wanted to write something more mood driven than most of what's come before in my repertoire. As a developing composer, I want to push myself in directions that I haven't gone before, and the early stages of this work were calculated to stretch my own abilities as a writer just as much as they were meant to stretch young middle school bandos in their journies as developing musicians. Like many of my works though, Breathless developed a mind of its own, and I didn't even realize I was writing the ending as I was in its midst, but I remember playing back the recording and my wife letting out a breath after hearing it before exclaiming: "Is that the end?" It wasn't intended to be, but after discussing it with her, it became the ending I didn't know I was building towards. Breathless is the darkest of the works that I have written, and my wife drew comparisons between the ending bars and a fading heart monitor, a comparison I didn't notice while writing, but now, can't unhear. So, is this a song about death? Maybe. It didn't start that way, but having watched more than my fair share of friends and relatives pass away slowly over the course of weeks, months & years, I find the descending arpeggio that chases us throughout the piece to be a harrowing harbinger of the inevitable. Now, the next obvious question: What is a song about death doing in the middle school band space? Is this the right place for such a work? But, realistically, middle schoolers have to cope with deaths in their family while growing up the same as I did, and I believe they deserve the opportunity to engage with mature topics as much as any adult. So yes. This is a song about death, and I hope you find it meaningful |
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