Elegy
Chamber Music: mixed sextet
Elegy was composed in October 1995 as a companion piece to Vortex. It was first performed on October 31, 1995, by the University of Texas New Music Ensemble with the composer conducting. Elegy is a slow passacaglia (i.e. a piece based on a repeated melody) framed by an atmospheric introduction and conclusion. Over the course of the passacaglia, the entrances of the theme speed up and overlap, becoming a series of mensuration canons. This kind of intricate counterpoint has been one of my compositional obsessions through time.