Premiered May 5, 2015 at Princeton University
Piano: Elliot Chang & Thomas Reeves
Violin: Stephanie Leotsakos
Speech Narration: Christopher Beard

For piano 4 hands (keys and strings under the hood), improv violin, and speech narration based on a diary entry I wrote in August 2013, after waking up from a very strange dream...

Premiered May 10, 2014 for the Princeton Composers Collective Spring Concert (live recording)

Violins: Stephanie Leotsakos & Katherine Hawkins
Piano: Daniel Hwang

I. In Waiting - An old grandfather clock sits to the right of an open door, ticking perpetually. Past the door we see into a dim room; a girl with long dark hair sits in a simple, wooden chair, staring out a window at the far end of the room. There is no furniture in the room, no paint on the walls—just an empty room with a window, a chair, and a girl.
II. Gone - Imagine the same image: Through an open door we see the same empty room, the same dim light, the same window, the same chair…
but no girl.

The melodies in this piece were meant to reflect different thoughts—whether the girl’s, the viewer’s, or a combination of both; the kind that repeat over and over in one’s head, get confused and combined with others, become agitated, or get slowed down to the point where everything seems to be in slow motion. These thoughts are set against illusory settings, or harmonic backgrounds, that barely change—such as a ticking clock in the first movement, or a repeating chord progression that seems to acknowledge the void of the missing girl in the second movement.