Performances
Premiered October 3 or 4 2026 by MusicON Chamber Orchestra, at The Blank Space in New York City, NY.
Program Notes
Meditation on Song and Structure was commissioned by the Mayflower Art Center and composed in 2026. The work took shape in part during a residency at Millay Arts, whose gift of time, space, and artistic community was invaluable to its creation.
The title is borrowed from Charles Wright’s poem “Meditation on Song and Structure” from Black Zodiac (1997), particularly the lines:
“Cardinal, exhale my sins,
help me to lie low and leave out,
Remind me that vision is singular, that excess
Is regress, that more than enough is too much, that
compression is all.”
While composing Meditation on Song and Structure, I found myself returning repeatedly to the hymns of the Beth Gazo, the central repertory of the Maronite Church, my own liturgical tradition. Rather than quoting specific melodies, the work inhabits the sound world of this tradition: its contemplative pacing, fluid sense of time, and the subtle heterophonic textures that emerge when multiple voices ornament a shared melodic idea. My friends have told me that hearing this music helps them better understand mine.
Charles Wright’s poem and the hymns of the Beth Gazo came together in unexpected ways in my mind. Both suggest that expression can arise through restraint rather than accumulation, that clarity often emerges by leaving things unsaid. Meditation on Song and Structure reflects this shared sensibility, unfolding as a sequence of quiet transformations in which melody, texture, and timbre are allowed to breathe, linger, and gradually reveal themselves.