little man (2023)
Violin, Prepared Piano
Duration: 11’
Written for and dedicated to Adam Woodward (Berlin Prize Laureate)
Premiered by Ledah Finck and Phillip Golub on February 28, 2022 at Taplin Auditorium, Princeton NJ
Movement titles, and order:
I: “pitted, under the sun”
II: “memories of fallingwater”
Program note
The night before my first day of kindergarten, my mom laid out my clothes that I would put on the following morning. A pair of socks, white underwear, a blue (or red, or white) polo shirt, and khaki pants or shorts. She called this my “little man”, and as such, arranged the clothes in the shape of a 2D child on the floor, a sock for a foot, a shirt for a torso, pants for legs.
little man draws inspiration from both deep and recent memories, and particularly has helped me emotionally process various tragic family events in recent years. The first movement, “pitted, under the sun” retraces through stages of grief I felt with the loss of a family member this past summer while the second movement, “memories of fallingwater”, is inspired by two visits to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house near Pittsburgh, PA. The difference in experience between these two visits was rather stark. My first trip to the house at age 10 was filled with wonder, while the second visit in late 2022 was a more mixed experience. Even though I had a greater appreciation for design, my grandma had a nasty fall, broke both wrists, and had to be transported to the nearest hospital via ambulance.
As a title, little man both relates to the original getting-ready ritual as well as the experience of feeling smaller, confronting frailty and mortality, and nostalgia.