A piece I wrote as a submission to the Winnipeg New Music Festival's "Michael Nesbitt Composers' Institute" — which was accepted! It will be performed on January 21, 2026.
Score and mockup coming after the performance.
I worked on the conceptualization for the piece starting in April of 2025, and then put pen to paper in late June / early July, just in time for the mid-July submission deadline. After it was accepted, the piece went through a few rounds of feedback and revision. Thanks to those from the WNMF who provided that feedback!
Here are the program notes:
It's close to the end of winter and you're standing on the back porch of your new house in the West End. The inescapable road dust that coats everything has tinged the yard grey-brown. A siren wails along Portage. Your wife is getting the baby to bed upstairs and you really don't have the energy to carry the bag of garbage in your hand out into the alley.
Weighing down your mind is an anger and a disappointment so deep it seeps into everything. The sea levels you were told were rising when you were six years old have only gotten higher. The wildfires have become seasonal. Systemic change does not seem as inevitable as structural failure. All any of your friends want is an inkling that they might one day live in a home they own. Upstairs, your baby is still crying and the wind starts blowing and your heart is wrenched out of your mouth because when the future bends towards certain catastrophe of one kind or another, what hope can there be?
And yet, the wind is blowing, and the trees off your back porch are beautiful even before their leaves have come in, and what a wondrous thing it will be when your baby first sees leaves. So hope is really the only possible thing to do.
O My Heart, the Wind asks and answers a question:
“Where does hope lead us?”
“It is on the wind."
