For Flute and Clarinet
Performances
Premiered by the Greater Cleveland Flute Society Composer Connection concert (Kaleb Chesnic, Flute; Ben Chen, Clarinet), Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cleveland, Shaker Heights April 27 2025
Recording
Program Note
Duo begins with the flute and clarinet exchanging short melodic fragments in what functions as a distributed cadenza, with musical gestures passed fluidly between the two instruments. As the piece unfolds, these fragments interlock and the players increasingly blend into one another, forming tightly interwoven lines.
The work is driven by perpetual motion, even in moments of apparent restraint. A central organizing principle is heterophony, a common feature of Middle Eastern musical traditions, through which closely related lines continually diverge and realign. Rather than moving through discrete sections, the music evolves through continuous transformation, maintaining forward momentum from beginning to end.