and through and through and through (2019) for string octet
duration: ca 20'

commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association - Gustavo Dudamel, Music & Artistic Director and Jacaranda

first performance: June 1, 2019 - Walt Disney Concert Hall on the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s “Noon to Midnight” Festival

program note:
The title and through and through and through, like many of my titles, draws its influence from Eastern religion and philosophy. Like the Heart Sutra, “gone, gone, gone beyond, gone beyond beyond” or the writings of Ram Dass, “go in in in in, further in, oh much further in, oh you’re just begun, keep going back in,” this title and piece draw upon the idea that the process of continually doing the process brings you further towards the goal of the process which is to do the process itself.

“There is a beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a beginning. There is a not yet beginning to be a not yet beginning to be a beginning.”  — Lao-tzu 

All the material in this piece is built from a small and simple musical idea. The piece continues to obsessively manipulate this musical idea and feed off of it to unspool every aspect of the work. From temporally stretching out the material to generate slow music, to cramming every pitch into a single attack as if the entire work has collapsed into itself, just when the music seems to have escaped its own process by completing it, it returns to go through it again and goes further. And then it goes through and through and through again. And when that’s done, it goes through it once more.