Patriot

Patriot was premiered by the Yale Philharmonia, 9 November 2007, under the direction of Julian Pellicano.

Program note: PATRIOT is put together with little motives that circle in and around themselves - not giving up, but not blossoming into a developed whole. The music begins with the trombones: forceful, heroic, but rushed. Families of instruments follow, with flutes driving forward in pockets of tightly packed figures that collapse into single pitches, and oboes singing out with a clarity that becomes corrupted. There is no space to breathe, only a restlessness which lives in the rhythm. A distorted military sound is the skeleton of this American music, a resonance always just below the surface, as we are barely conscious of an unconscionable war waged in our name. The final trumpet music is an echo of some old blues, sinking, fading.