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The Heavenly Hazel Tree (2016)

​Listen to the piece

  • Instrumentation: Violin, piano.

  • Description: This piece is cast in a ternary form, based on the slow movement of a Classical sonata template. It includes ethereal birds in the violin part I notated while sketching on a walk (beginning of May), and a second B theme also saved from my initial sketches. The violin goes up quite high, and the whole-tone scale is employed at various points. It’s a very delicate little piece that was a struggle to write, as I didn’t really like the direction it was going for a while. Playing through the violin part and hearing my two colleagues at Augustana play through it really helped me appreciate it even more.

  • I'd like to thank Brian Hinkley and Dortha DeWit for performing this piece in the recording below.

The Heavenly Hazel Tree (2016): Text
The Heavenly Hazel Tree (2016): Video
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