Unnamed, Jr. program note

Unnamed, Jr. is scored for clarinet, viola, and piano. It's the offspring of a work in progress, a chamber opera that used to be titled Unnamed (or, the Unnamed). (The opera project has since transformed into a Kafka adaptation.) Once I figured out that I needed to revise the first libretto I'd written, I set it aside. I had trouble with the story, but I also couldn't imagine, exactly, the kind of music I wanted to write (a chicken–and–egg situation: without the libretto, no music; without the music, no libretto). I decided that a companion piece would help me break out of this impasse. Unnamed, Jr. is a kind of holding pen for all of the melodic, harmonic, textural, gestural and dramatic ideas that emerged from the opera sketches. This piece is dedicated, with great respect and admiration, to Mary Chun and the musicians of Earplay.

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