The Ides of March (2016)

PREMIERE
June 15, 2016 at the Charlotte New Music Festival
​Charlotte, NC

OTHER PERFORMANCES
April 13, 2017
Lubbock, TX

ENSEMBLE
flute, saxophone, mezzo, percussion, piano

DURATION
6'

​PROGRAM NOTES
“The Ides of March” explores the Phrygian mode and its relationship to set class 4-11 (0135), beginning with one iteration of the set class, and adding other iterations until all twelve chromatic tones are present by means of various compositional techniques such as aleatoricism and transpositions and inversions of the set class. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the composition tells of the mysterious soothsayer’s prediction. As the music increases in complexity, rhythmic and metric accelerandos bring the piece, like Caesar’s life, to a dramatic end.