Performances:

EU premier: SOLI Chamber Ensemble at the Alba Music Festival in Alba, Italy, July 2018.

US Premier: Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble in Oberlin, OH, October, 2019.

UK Premier: Leeds Clothworkers Hall, LS4 Contemporary Music Ensemble, May, 2024.

Additional Performances:

Composers Now Dialogue Series with Tania Leon, Piano Forte, Chicago, Ensemble Dal Niente, June, 2024.

The Wild Iris (2018)

The Wild Iris, for Clarinet, Violin and Cello, was written for the SOLI Chamber Ensemble and premiered at the 2018 Alba Music Festival. Inspired by the work of Louis Glück, The Wild Iris explores instrumental music's ability to portray narrative through emotive gestures.

The Wild Iris, written for the Soli Chamber Ensemble at the Alba Music Festival, shares its name with the title poem of Louise Glück’s Pulitzer prize winning poetry anthology. Derived as a song without words setting of Glück’s title poem, The Wild Iris depicts a narrative of grief, personifying imagery and affect that Glück describes so eloquently in her work. The piece opens with breathing gestures that repeat freely, the clarinet then enters and begins its lament. The microtonal string writing shifts continuously around the melody of the clarinet, creating an atmosphere of instability and listlessness while the clarinet laments and wails freely amidst the texture. The piece then comes to a close with a heightened variation on the breathing gesture it begins with, an unresolved and pained conclusion.

This recording is by the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble, Clarinetist: Emily Hancock, Violinist: Munira Mirxat, Cellist: Jumi Lee