Composer
Program Notes A drishti is a focused gaze, usually on a single point. The word became known in the West through the practice of yoga: as the body moves through a series of postures, the drishti remains a constant. It is the grounded center that allows everything around it to move and transform. In this work, the … Read more
Program Notes This miniature for trumpet takes its name from the landform you see in the distance in the video above. Pedernal is an iconic mesa outside of Santa Fe, near Ghost Ranch — the home and studio of American painter Georgia O’Keefe. I have visited Pedernal many times in my life — it is … Read more
***This work is not yet completed*** Program Notes Recording Special Performance Requirements Audio Guide Premiere/Performances Press/Reviews
Program Notes A “pathway of desire” is an architectural term for an unplanned trail that has been eroded into the ground through repeated use — such as a rut in a lawn where the dirt is exposed because people cut across it constantly. It’s not the paved, prescribed path — but it becomes discernible because … Read more
Program Notes The Tipping Point is explores the return of light. It is set in Raag Vibhas, a Hindustani raag (p/d) that is characteristically performed at daybreak. Amy Fogerson’s text is rooted in the solstice (as metaphor for a larger social struggle between darkness and light) — exploring the return of light in yearly cycles. … Read more
Program Notes This arrangement intertwines “America the Beautiful” with a melody in Raag Desh (from the Hindustani classical tradition of India). Desh means ‘country’ in Hindi (the reason why South Asians often refer to themselves as ‘desi’ – meaning ‘of the country’. It implies a unity that precedes Partition, and acknowledges that there was a … Read more
Program Notes Inconvenient Wounds is about finding threads of hope in a world that is slipping away. The beginning imagines the sound of the moment when a tiny crack in a glacier opens, first slowly, then rapidly, as a massive slab of ice as tall as a skyscraper collapses into the sea. And yet, as … Read more
Program Notes (notes for the original work, for choir and obligato violin or cello): As a companion piece to Victoria’s O Vos Omnes, I chose to set a beautiful text by the 14C Persian poet Hafiz. The text of O Vos Omnes is asking, simply, to be seen in a moment of sorrow — to … Read more
Program Notes She Will Transform You is centered around a beautiful poem of Indian-American author Neelanjana Banerjee. She speaks about the beautiful relationship of an immigrant and her child to their country of origin, and the significant role a child from both cultures has in bridging the divide between them. As a child of immigrants, I have felt both that distance … Read more
Program Notes Crystal Preludes is a collection of five years of experiments in my piano writing. Of the 12 preludes in this set, some are expansions of material that exist in earlier works (such as my Piano Trio, Godsongs, et al), some are preliminary sketches for future works, and some are that just ideas that … Read more
Program Notes This song for soprano/mezzo, piano and violin was originally the fifth movement of my oratorio, eponymously titled This Love Between Us. The text comes from a variety of translations of ancient saint-poet Kabir’s writings, and from the Isa Upanishad. The original version starts and ends with a duet. The violin line was originally … Read more
Program Notes Blaze is a work in progress. The audio below is the first iteration of an ongoing exploration with violinist Shalini Vijayan and tabla player T.J. Troy. While I’ve written extensively for the violin, tabla writing is new to me, and this is just the beginning of my exploration of the vast possibilities of … Read more