Polyhedral

As a sonic object that explores texture by way of process, Polyhedral takes the subject of a constant motive and aims to portray it from ‘opposing facets,’ or shifting perspectives. Past the piece’s gradual unfolding and sporadic ‘edges and vertices’ is an underlying (yet persistent) attention to balance – as if it were a Platonic mathematical shape, symmetries anchor Polyhedral at various layers and scopes. This is perhaps most immediately exemplified in the piece’s inexorable ostinato, which binds a dominant and minor tonic sonority into a fixed, static structure. Serving as the stem of almost all material in the piece, the arpeggio will transpose or permutate (in a reordering of the pitches) but never alter its fundamental harmonic architecture.

Within the span of a quick glance into the score of Polyhedral, it may also quickly become apparent of the piece’s celebration of numerology, or more generally and simply, numbers. Somewhat ironically, however, this piece is not actually dictated in a serialist manner by numerical patterns or a procedure of composition, unlike some of my other works. Instead, the piece has an intuitive and linear path, with some larger decisions of form and repetition being derived from the delightful asymmetry of prime numbers.

Polyhedral was composed for the musicians of Ensemble Linea as a part of the ensemble’s residency at the Peabody Institute in the spring of 2024. The piece is respectfully dedicated to the septet of Johannes Burghoff (‘cello), Laurent Camatte (viola), Helena Sousa Estévez (accordion), Carolina Santiago Martínez (piano), Keiko Murakami (flutes), Andrea Nagy (clarinets), and Ernst Spyckerelle (violin) in admiration for their combined musicianship and ongoing contributions to the performance of contemporary music.

Performance Time: 4’00”