Answers
Antiphons in the Anthropocene
Answers is a piece for two woodwind trios. Musical ideas pass between the two halves of the ensemble and among individual players, recalling the antiphonal works of Venetian Renaissance composers, the call-and-response traditions of blues and gospel, and echo effects in electronic music. These musical exchanges create patterns of expectation. Every echo implies a source, calls invite responses, and questions promise answers.
In Answers, however, each movement ends with a musical question mark. Despite scientific advances, global communication, and unprecedented access to information, many of the most pressing questions shaping contemporary life resist simple answers. Rather than offering solutions, Answers embraces the questions. It is a set of three antiphons for this uncertain moment in the Anthropocene.
The first movement begins with a familiar tuning “A,” one of the few moments of concord in Answers. Simple echoes between paired instruments gradually accumulate into richly layered counterpoint. The second movement draws on an obscure 1911 hymn called “Answer ‘Yes’ to Jesus!” Its melodic fragments circulate through the ensemble as though each instrument were searching for an answer of its own. The third movement evokes the irregular aksak rhythms of Balkan dance music. The two halves of the ensemble are set against one another rhythmically and harmonically. Though they come together in the final moments of the piece, each trio remains in its own harmonic world, leaving the final question unresolved.