Duration: 7’30”

Ensemble: Flute, Viola, Harp

Premiere: August 2, 2025, Los Angeles, CA

Written For: Emerging Composers Intensive 2026

Program Note:

I arrived at the concept for Bottleneck after weeks of wrestling with the asymmetries of the flute-viola-harp ensemble. The timbral inequalities and the uneven projection among all three instruments forced me to abandon many of my usual compositional habits. The resulting work instead embraces these peculiarities and holds them center-stage.

Spiritually, this piece owes its existence to the late composer Susan Alcorn, whose music for the pedal steel guitar reveals the endless wealth still to be found in instruments and ensembles often confined by genre expectations.