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Finding Equilibrium was commissioned by Calvin T. Falwell, Amy Advocat, Dr. Alexandra Doyle, Andy Hudson, Tucker Hall-Klingensmith, Asher Carlson, Catherine Gatewood, Luke Ellard, Stefanie Gardner, and Wendy Bickford
The title of "Finding Equilibrium" is a play on another composition of mine, Far from Equilibrium, a clarinet quartet based on the physics of turbulence. That piece explores topics of chaos and entropy, but this quintet seeks to find stability and balance. It is about my experience finding these virtues through picking up a habit of running. I had wanted to get in shape for years but found it nearly impossible to create a new habit of self-improvement in this manner. Finally, through social support and encouragement while at a music festival, I managed to start running regularly and have kept it up for nine years and counting.
This piece is about the feeling of struggling while training and trying to overcome physical and mental difficulties. It is about searching for oneself and looking for balance in one's life.
There are five movements with interwoven themes that are played without pause. Finding Equilibrium begins before dawn. Many times I would force myself to be awake early to train. As I am not a morning person, I discovered a huge value in the peaceful and beautiful early morning, connecting with nature as the world wakes up. The second movement, 5K, represents one of my earliest goals: to run a 5K distance (about 3.1 miles) in under half an hour. It was a struggle for me to get in shape and work towards this goal, and the music reflects my difficulties at finding running equilibrium and being able to sustain a consistent pace for a long enough duration to meet that distance. The third movement, High-Intensity Interval Training, is a method that alternates all-out sprinting with rest. As this pattern repeats a few times, the amount of pain and lactic acid gradually builds, with spectral multiphonics in the bass clarinet and over-pressure bowing in the strings creating a sense of anguish.
After this rollercoaster of a training session, the fourth movement, Recovery, returns to the texture of the opening of the piece, recontextualizing the atmospheric strings and lyrical clarinet lines into a warm and lush climax. The final movement, 10K, returns to the music of the second movement, but finds itself in a slower tempo, now more easily flowing and not rushed. Elements of all of the different musical textures in this piece are combined as it disappears into the distance.
Duration: ca 18'
Instrumentation:
1 B flat bass clarinet
2 Violins
1 Viola
1 Cello
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