Catalogue

Program Note:

Condense Eternity was commissioned by the First Music Program for the New York Youth Symphony and Interlochen Center for the Arts.

Having spent some time studying music in both Michigan and New York, I felt compelled to create a work that connected the two places. In thinking about the various energies, terrains, and cultural differences between the two, I found a link in one particular physical structure: their bridges.

Both the Brooklyn (NY) and Mackinac (MI) bridges have deep historic roots in the lives of their cities. They represent decades of politics, industry, and a desire to unify the people and land in their regions.

Inspired by these two tremendous structures, I decided that the suspension bridges themselves would become the shape of the piece. Like a bridge, the music rises and falls. I imagined driving through the arches, feeling the suspender cables on the sides slowly expand and contract. I felt the huge vertical towers gradually engulf me. I felt the bridge move with the wind, harnessing it as a source of energy rather than resistance.

I also thought about the idea of a bridge as a broader point of connection. It can link people, generations, traditions, and ideas. It can be a channel to understanding and acceptance. It can represent the passage of time and carry within it countless stories and experiences.

The title, Condense Eternity is a line taken from Hart Crane’s “To Brooklyn Bridge”, the opening poem to a longer work about the sacredness and emotional spirit of the bridge:

Again the traffic lights that skim thy swift
Unfractioned idiom, immaculate sigh of stars,
Beading thy path—condense eternity:
And we have seen night lifted in thine arms.