Program Notes with Performance Video

My good friend Sarah Walder was stuck in the Netherlands for sixteen months during the Covid Pandemic.  She asked me to write her an unaccompanied piece for her upcoming recording of unaccompanied cello works. I wrote her an unaccompanied piece titled Restless In Place, however I also wanted to write her a piece using her Looper. She has recorded this second piece, Restless In Loops, for the Shelter Music project sponsored by the American Composers Alliance (ACA).

She is very good with her looper and writes a lot of her own pieces using it. I decided to write a different version of the original piece rather than a brand new work. However, it turned out to be quite a bit different from the first version both musically, and in tone and mood. 

I have tried to capture the useless anxiety we are have been facing in the midst of these strange times, the restlessness that comes from hunkering down for months on end.  The piece for Sarah is the second I have done for a musician whose project is to make an unaccompanied recording.  Zoom projects and home recitals only provide so much satisfaction, and little if any financial reward.  A musician is often propelled primarily by inner fire and artistry, and a challenging project of this sort seems a logical and sanity-maintaining solution to having one’s entire profession shut down.