For flute, string quartet, and 2 hand drums
Horse Notations (2019) was written as a commission by the Oregon East Symphony to be premiered in the homelands of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. The composition utilizes a 1874 Popular Science Journal article titled “The Paces of the Horse” and its analysis of horse gaits–the walk, trot, canter, and gallop–as source material for rhythms, drum patterns, bow pressures, and volume arcs. Graphic representations from the article appear in the score as notations for the drum(s) and any instruments that learn from the drum. Horse Notations is a look at the speed of the day, a perspective of tempo throughout one’s life, and a view of the momentum of shared human and animal history.
Commissioned by Oregon East Symphony