Work
Shudder
for string quartet
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About
I wrote Shudder in 2014-15 when I was first studying with Julia Wolfe. I was really interested in elevating texture as a material for composing, and I based the piece on an abstraction of the physical phenomenon of sleep myoclonus: the phenomenon of involuntary twitches or jerks which most often occur while we fall asleep or undergo anaesthesia.
When I was a child I experienced hypnagogic myoclonic jerks quite often while I was drifting off to sleep. I would have the stomach-flipping sensation of falling. . . before suddenly jerking awake, and finding myself just where I’d been, flat on my back in bed.
When I was writing the piece I thought of these movements as interruptions in overarching, woven structural processes, punctuated by bolts of energy — or shudders.
Performance history
01 Apr 2015: Performed by JACK Quartet at Provincetown Theatre, NYU, New York, USA
02 Dec 2019: Performed as part of Chicago Symphony: Music Now at Harris Theater, Chicago, IL, USA