Mvt 1 : “Here.” | Mvt 2 : “Halation Sketches” | Mvt 3 : “The Breath Becomes the Bow”

It is the moment of returning from meandering thought to stillness, not the stillness itself, that can be most rewarding in meditative practice. I found this such a fascinating concept and one that could be a beautiful exploration in music. This piece is a series of these moments, of varying length, depth, and intensity , where a tangential thought is noticed and we ease back into quiet.

The following two movements trace something like this same progression from unease into a kind of flow state across a wider span of time. In the middle movement, the instruments of the quartet are propelled forward in a kind of incessant swirl of different timbres before finally halting and proceeding uninterrupted into the final movement. Here, the players find a new stasis, much richer than that of the first movement. The quartet hums along with their instruments through a repeating series of harmonies before finding themselves back at the unison which opened the piece.