Variants and Strains

Variants and Strains was commissioned by the SILVERSMITHS and the New Jersey Wind Symphony Flute Ensemble. A twelve minute, through composed work, Variants and Strains is in three sections representing the pre-COVID world, COVID lock-down, and “post” COVID world. It explores the manic pace of our world, the isolation, loneliness, and loss of the pandemic, and the disruption and change brought about by the virus.

The composition is meticulously created around mathematic principles of symmetry and proportion. It contains musical references to the traditional English folk melody, Kingsfold, used in Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus and the Gregorian antiphon, In paradisum used in the Latin liturgy of the Western Church Requiem Mass which includes the text, “May choirs of angels receive you and with Lazarus, once (a) poor (man), may you have eternal rest."