“Haven” is inspired by different places, memories, and ideas that we hold close to our hearts, to shelter us in times of uncertainty. Each of the three movements is a musical love letter to one of my havens at this point in life. These havens are consistently a source of inspiration and reassurance, appearing in my most vivid dreams and fondest memories.

The first movement, “Imagined Skies,” paints a picture of one of my most familiar sights: the skyline in my home state of Colorado. The elevation changes that come with the towering Rocky Mountain range are a caveat of some fascinating cloud formations, which weave across a transparent and ever-expansive sky. The movement follows an imaginary cycle of daylight from sunrise to sunset, with each color and melody announcing its arrival, drifting and soaring to the next cloudscape. When I think of home, I picture this sky, which hangs over my loved ones, longing for the next time I will be lucky enough to experience its unique beauty. 

The second movement, “Time Capsules,” is an ode to my musical haven, found in old recordings of classical music and film scores. I adore how an old recording can capture the details from a specific moment in time: every breath of a performer, every ounce of rubato and expression, all sealed in a record, to be listened to over and over. The movement involves a musical battle inspired by two of my all-time favorites: the dramatic final movement of Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony and Bernard Hermann’s dazzling score from the film Vertigo. My favorite recording of the Tchaikovsky is from 1987, performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by the great Leonard Bernstein. This specific recording makes time stand still, a result of a dramatically slow tempo with unmatched melodic clarity and direction. In contrast, Hermann’s score to accompany the iconic Hitchcock film marvels in its ability to consistently build tension and suspense (as a Hitchcock movie tends to go). Despite this contrast, it was a fun challenge to discover a common ground between the two works as a process of composing.

The final movement, “In a Sacred Place,” is a meditation on my fascination with religious architecture and music. Sacred places exist for people to come together and heal, as havens to experience the beauty of art and music from centuries past. Every culture and religion has a unique iteration of music associated with sacred places, yet each has something in common: resonant sounds filled to the brim with rich overtones and big reverberant spaces for these overtones to bounce around for a long while after their genesis. I aimed to channel sounds and feelings from my most beloved time exploring these sacred places in the cities of Prague: “the city of a thousand spires” and Rome: “the capital of a thousand churches”.