Program Notes

Fables was inspired by my mother Kamini Avril’s 2019 painting exhibit by the same name, at the Bowery Gallery in New York City. The original version of Fables was for clarinet and cello, for my brother (Shankar Tucker, clarinetist) and I (cellist) to play together. Thus, we built our idiosyncrasies into the piece: my character, who is most comfortable playing a supportive role, and my brother's often-virtuosic improvisations that float in the space between classical, jazz and Hindustani music. (This version of the piece includes my brother’s improvised solos from the premiere, transcribed.) The piece captures the way he and I interact, from serious to (lovingly) verbally jabbing at one another. There's even a sequence of escalating musical dares. But throughout, each musical line supports and relies on the another. 

Here are two of the images from the painting exhibit that inspired the piece: Haunting, luminescent birds bearing departed souls in their beaks; and myself seated, composing at the piano, in the exact position my grandfather (also a composer, Edwin Avril, who died in 2018) used to sit-- the memory of his image contained in mine. Fables aims to connect these images which bridge ancestral, imaginative worlds, where shadows of memory take the form of spirit-bearing animals: huge black cats, enormous green and purple birds, and translucent deer.