Program Notes

This work was co-commissioned by Bagaduce Music and Carnegie Hall for Brooklyn Rider’s 2022 commissioning project, ‘The Four Elements,’ in which commissioned works allude to earth, air, fire and water. Hollow Flame meditates on fire. 

Here in California, fire is not just at the doorstep; it's burning our home. From the 2018 Camp fire, to the 2025 Los Angeles fires, 'fire season' is becoming a permanent, horrific reality in this state. Drought, wildfire, choking smoke, poor air and water quality, and all the massive personal losses due to fire... It's too much to bear. All these conditions are predicted to worsen as the planet warms: the result of our ruling classes choosing profit over human life every single day.

I started the research phase of this project in 2020/2021. An important part of that process has been my participation in "Composing Earth," a 2-year program at the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music. Without being a part of this program, I'm not sure I would have been able to write this piece. It was like a book club for artists, or a support group for all the difficult feelings the climate crisis alights in us: grief, fear, anger. Researching this topic, alone at first, felt extremely isolating. But with a group, however small, we could share our experiences, and know that - no, we aren' t crazy - for feeling sad, mad, or numbed, or hollowed out. 

My string quartet, Hollow Flame is like a journal entry, of moments recorded over many months -- in which I try to grapple with what is happening -- the loss of so much, from ancient, old-growth forests to human lives, let alone human health and the well-being of our ecosystems. It is an attempt to understand my own numbness, my own inability to even form words when I try to talk about it.