Convoluted Reasoning (2016)

vln., vla., vc., db., hp., pno., perc.

Program Notes

The term ‘convoluted reasoning’ refers to logic that follows unnecessary detours and tangents to arrive at a conclusion. On its own, ‘convoluted’ generally refers to anything that is excessively complex and occasionally devious. In exploring these concepts, I conceived of this piece as a series of drastic reinterpretations of the same musical materials–a drawn-out harmonic progression and a rather unpredictable melodic theme–each at varying levels of recognizability. While a convoluted argument can be hard to follow, I often find the process of listening to such arguments to be amusing and enjoyable for the sheer novelty and audaciousness of the perpetrator’s approach to logic—it is this  strange sense of amusement that I’ve attempted to capture within this piece.

duration: c. 7'30"

commissioned by the 2016 Norfolk New Music Workshop