wicked problems

I’m delighted to finally release this audio from a session with two of the commissioners, Anna Petrenko and Lindsay Myers. I’ve spent a dreadful amount of time staring at Finale and Word recently, so it was particularly refreshing to reminisce about this very collaborative project.

This piece simply could not have existed without Bill Ryan and the GVSUNME; the commissioners, Anna, Darwin, Karsten, Lindsay; and my loyal proofreaders, Lukas, Gabe, and Collin.

Program notes:

wicked problems was written for Anna Petrenko, Darwin McMurray, Karsten Wimbush, and Lindsay Myers. Karsten and I traveled together with the Grand Valley State University New Music Ensemble on their second National Parks Tour, at which time the foundation for this commission was developed. We both hold a powerful, spiritual reverence for nature, and that concept is the focus of our piece.

In the parks, I saw enough irreverence to be deeply disturbed, and, as a composer, I don’t know what better way to address the wicked issues that we face as a society than through raising my voice in my compositions.

I am certainly not the first.

This bipartite piece presents the ways in which humankind can exist sustainably with nature, and the ways in which humankind can stomp and consume it.