A COUNTRY OF VAST DESIGNS (2012)

For String Quartet

Duration ca. 20:00

A Country of Vast Designs (PDF Score and Parts Set)
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PROGRAM NOTES

In four movements:

  1. God and Glory

  2. Passage

  3. Spirit

  4. A Country of Vast Designs

A Country of Vast Designs takes its title from an 1844 quotation by Ralph Waldo Emerson: “America is the country of the future. It is a country of beginnings, of projects, of vast designs and expectations.” The piece addresses aspects of the early American experience, attempting to convey (among other things) the nervous excitement of departing for a new world; the boredom and malaise of a lengthy ocean voyage; and the positive and negative aspects of American energy and drive. The quartet concludes on an overtly optimistic note, something for which I hope it’s not too late.

Premiered by Marina Kifferstein, Gemma Baehr, Mujan Hosseinzadeh, and Meaghan Burke in Greenfield Hall, New York, NY (November 2012).

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