Just One More Question
2011
clarinet with electronics
6'20"
Premiere: Chester Howard, clarinet, Stony Brook University, October 26, 2011
Additional Performance: Chester Howard, clarinet, National Student Electronic Music Event, Temple University, March 23, 2012
Program note:
Just One More Question, for clarinet and fixed media, is an ode to anxiety in the digital age. The text comes from a radio interview with the novelist Gary Shteyngart, who eloquently describes both his utter fascination with and deep skepticism of technology. Just One More Question is alternately a dialogue, a struggle, a dance, and a tug-of-war between the living-and-breathing clarinetist and the disembodied voices that comprise the fixed media part. In a larger sense, the piece is an attempt to bridge the gap between two extremely divergent musical and sonic characters.