The two years 2017 and 2018 may prove the most pivotal yet for my music. 2017 saw the premiere of a major orchestra work, my Sinfonietta; the completion and premiere of my piano suite Sargent’s Women; the continuing development and performance of my dramatic song cycle (with poet/soprano Emma Stace Darling) Girl on Fire; and the composition and premiere of my second chamber work with Korean traditional instruments, Nonghyun. Four quite different strands of creativity – orchestra, piano, vocal, and cross-cultural musics – and each attained a new fluency. 2017 was a time of stretching out, and also of going deeper.

Moreover, 2017 was the year when I made the decision to refocus on composing after a long and extremely fulfilling tenure at the New York Philharmonic.  I kept up a pace of two or three pieces each year, but now I enter 2018 with five new works to compose, for premieres during the same year or next. My imagination is teeming with ideas, and my heart is full with affection for all the performers who realize my musical ideas.