the implementation of a long-needed boundary (piano, flute, viola, cello) (2022)

Commissioned and premiered by the Salastina Ensemble— Los Angeles, CA 5/31/2022

Program Notes

the implementation... depicts a mental health journey in three sections. The first section introduces a raucous, angular theme and its variations— an initial trauma and its propagations. While there are a few attempts to break the theme down and examine it, most of the variations try to normalize the theme— the tendency to rationalize and understate trauma’s long-term effects. Variations attempting to develop too far from the initial theme are reigned in by its restatements, usually by the flute accompanied bitonally— developmental stunting, inflexibility, and cognitive dissonance. It isn’t until there is a forceful interruption that the theme stops rampantly repeating and varying itself— the pattern-stopping power of mental breakdowns or the active decision to break cycles of abuse.

The second section is a dedicated and intentional examination of the initial trauma and its effects on one’s life. The theme is drastically stretched out in the piano as the other instruments weave in and out creating various harmonies and textures as they try to rationalize, inspect, and understand. This spacious texture contains moments of conventional tonality— moments of healing that occur from such examination. Near the end of this section, a new theme is introduced— the boundary, a change in lifestyle moving forward. It is introduced very rudimentarily as each section of the ensemble “tries it out”— the often not-totally-successful initial implications of a lifestyle change. The second section ends with a final statement of the first theme, slow and intentional and accompanied by warm, bittersweet chords from the piano— the learned ability to verbalize the source of one’s trauma, to do so in a gentle and nurturing way, and to acknowledge the duality of its effects on one’s growth as a person.

The third section introduces the first new tempo of the piece as it brings back the new theme, the boundary. The theme expands as it travels up the instruments over piano accompaniment and swells into a large, full statement. The harmony, contrastingly tonal— a newfound lucidity and self-awareness— moves fluidly between chord qualities and moods— the various emotional implications of implementing boundaries. Near the end, the strings attempt to bring back the initial theme but are stopped in their tracks, though the piano reverts to its bitonal accompaniment from the first section. The flute, which previously insured the initial theme’s restatements, has now taken on the new theme. As the flute repeats the new theme, the strings play a single major chord underneath, twice using ricochet— the hesitance of standing one’s newfound ground— and once smoothly— getting the hang of it. The piano continues bitonally repeating fragments of the initial theme, though to a much lesser extent and at a much softer dynamic— the understanding that however successful our healing journey is, our trauma will always be a part of us. This is not good or bad. It just is.