composer | musician | educator

Grey Departure

for string quartet from String Quartet No. 1 (2007) 10′

Program Notes: 

Grey Departure (2007), for string quartet derived from String Quartet No. 1, which is the result of a fascination with two differing sources: the compositional process of Iannis Xenakis and Morton Feldman’s characteristic slow evolution of material. As such, Grey Departure and String Quartet No. 1 are explorations of the use of stochastics in the compositional process and slowly evolving materials. Aside from these aspects and an attempt to stretch the possibilities of the program MusicGen (a compositional aid), a strict algorithmic process was followed. This process centered around a trajectory that mapped overall density, intervallic content, and note duration. Grey Departure, a truncated version ofString Quartet No. 1, was created for the purpose of furthering performance possibilities.