A Voice in the Night Woods

Instrumentation: 3,2,3,3 - 4,2,3,1, timp, 3 perc, hp, str

Duration: 9’

Year Composed: 2017-18

Premiere: January 31, 2018 • University Philharmonic Orchestra with Jotaro Nakano conducting

Program Note

Field guides are an extraordinary resource for those of us tasked with titling musical compositions. In the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of Eastern and Central North America, the paragraph on the Eastern Whip-Poor-Will begins thus: A voice in the night woods, this species is more often heard than seen.” The Whip-Poor-Will can be heard in many Northeast American forests, including the one that surrounds my parents’ home in the Catskill Mountains of New York. One night in summer, 2017, I was deeply moved by the repetitive, almost mechanical call of the Whip-Poor-Will as it invaded my dreams. I followed the sound as if it were a beacon, guiding me through layers of sleep towards consciousness. As I eventually lay awake, still hearing this alien song from my dream as clear as day, I couldn’t be sure that I was in fact conscious.

A Voice in the Night Woods follows my ascension from sleep to wakefulness, and back again, while observing the reality that sound can be a common thread stitching both worlds together.