Vinetan Songs

Vinetan Songs was written for Quatuor Bozzini in the Winter and Spring of 2025, co-commissioned by The Earle Brown Music Foundation Charitable Trust, Le Vivier, Soundstreams, and Quatuor Bozzini with support from Canada Council for the Arts. The title refers to the myth of Vineta, a sunken city in the Baltic that was first written about by Ibrahim ibn Jaqub around 965 c.a.. In composing this music, I imagine the music of Vineta, writing music that aspires to the richness and variety of structures, signs, and techniques that develop over generations in a musical tradition. This conception of writing music in an imaginary tradition demands that I reconsider and reinvent musical traditions familiar to me and question the basic assumptions and values they carry: how are instruments tuned and played? What is the social purpose of music? How are cultural concepts reflected in music?