The summer of 2021 was spent on a mind-numbingly large chunk of work spent in good company. Bassoonist Cornelia Sommer, pianist Dror Baitel, and I were squirreled away in the carrels of the Juilliard library finishing a batch of dissertations. The overlap in our topics (composition, fairy tale music, and the music of Stephen Sondheim) led to some wonderfully nerdy conversation in the midst of so much writing and re-writing.
Some months later as we prepared to say goodbye to the place, Nelly had the idea to perform a set of pieces that she could link to each of our dissertations. Since my topic was a bit tough to do this with, I decided to write a piece for her that recalled the previous summer of our little dissertating club.
I needed a fairy tale for bassoon, and none seemed more appropriate right off the bat than Jack and the Beanstock, which happily enough is one of the center-pieces of Sondheim’s Into the Woods. I decided to base the piece around the “magic beans” theme from the play. Although it was turned around with very short notice, it ended up being a charming piece that is well-suited to Nellie’s incredible playing.
~ May , 2022 | New York, NY~