for large orchestra (3[picc.].3[e.h.].3[bs.cl.].3[cbsn.] 4.2.3.1 timp+3 hp strings)

Nocturnes (2014-2015) is a set of three symphonic poems based on places I visited the previous summer. As in Debussy’s famous Nocturnes, the music is not meant to be a literal representation of night scenes, but rather an evocation of the feelings I experienced in these environments. I spent June of that summer living in a cozy apartment in Paris. On my first night there, I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of hail pinging against the roofs of the apartment buildings around me. I lay awake for over an hour, listening to the various timbres produced as the hail melted into rain and then gradually died away. As I drifted back to sleep, I imagined a city built entirely of glass being ground to pieces by such a storm. My desire to depict this vitreous apocalypse in music led me to compose “The City of Glass.”