violin and viola (2001)
duration: 8′
Premiere performance: July 17, 2001, at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival
Elissa Lee Koljonen, violin and Roberto Diaz, viola
program note
Catalog of Scents in the Garden at Night for violin and viola was completed in Brooklyn, New York in spring 2001. Like many of my pieces, it is intimate and personal.
When I’m away from home, or homesick, or simply distressed about something, I close my eyes and imagine my favorite scents in the garden, one at a time; this is my version of taking deep breaths, or counting sheep. I imagine these scents drifting on the air in my Brooklyn backyard on a summer night: roses, lilies, heliotrope, jasmine tobacco, four o’clocks. The piece isn’t a literal aural list of scents, but a musical representation of how I calm myself, and how my mind races and circles.
Catalog of Scents in the Garden at Night was commissioned by the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival for violinist Elissa Lee Koljonen and violist Roberto Diaz.