Composer Notes

No one gets through life without getting bushwhacked by impermanence. At some point that favorite wool sweater will get ruined in the wash. We’ll discover mildew in the scrapbook. We may even lose our wedding ring or drop our kid’s birthday cake on the floor. (Yes, I really did both of those things.)

The onslaught of impermanence can be relentless, even brutal. Marriages fail, neighborhoods burn, farms go to auction, and democracies falter. And not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s also (you know) death.

If we’re wise – and sometimes we are – we also remind ourselves to be gobsmacked by the amazingness of what’s here right now. We spend time with our babies. We close our eyes and listen to music. We meet the gaze of a stranger in a checkout line. And some years we remember to walk the nearby lilac path before the blooms begin to fade. (If you’re suspecting that last reminder is for me, you’d be right.)

I composed Impermanent Things as a meditation on the transient nature of life, but I also had a specific example in mind: my son Oliver, a gregarious, creative, viola-playing teen. How amazing it was to have a ringside seat as he was growing into such a fine adult.

Impermanent Things unfolds from a single note and gradually discovers its shape, gathering momentum until it comes fully into its own. I was astonished at how unrepentantly rhapsodic the piece became, like shrubs so thick with blossoms you can’t see the flowers for the bees. My music isn’t exactly known for this kind of rich indulgence, yet here it is: one more way for art to help us make sense of this fleeting, treasured thing called life.