Commissioned by Young Concert Artists for Benjamin Baker

“White and distant, absorbed in itself, endlessly the sky covers and uncovers, moves and remains.”

This line from Virginia Woolf’s short story “Monday or Tuesday” (1921) has been on my mind for the past two years, ever since I used some of the text in a choral setting. It has since inspired a mixed chamber work, and now, a piece for solo violin. Move and Remain joins an unofficial series of compositions that mediate on the notion of an expansive space and the act of remaining— a certain will to linger, despite movement all around.

My collaboration with violinist Benjamin Baker centered on our shared experiences of touring and traveling. I believe that one experiences profound change with each new locale, and transcribing this experience of displacement into music has always fascinated me. Our conversations led me back to a fundamental question in my own life, of what or where I consider as “home”. 

Indeed, the piece begins with strumming, a blurry memory of the Hawaiian music I heard in my childhood. This musical kernel immediately departs from this context and undergoes several transformations, eventually opening up into rolling arpeggios. A simple melody that is carefully embedded and implied throughout the work is what remains at the very end. The piece also makes use of a widened sonic palette— harmonics are an important part of the musical vocabulary here, as are the hollow sounds in the strings below the bridge. The lowest string is further lowered by a whole-step to reveal an evocative harmony that colors the rest of the music. These subtle extensions of the violin’s expressive range aim to highlight states of being that are unstable and fleeting.