Sinfonietta Helene

Composer’s note

I sat down at a piano I can barely play, and a melody arrived the way grief arrives, before there are any words for it. I did not build up to it. It was simply there, whole. The rest of the piece is the work of building a world around that one true thing.

Hurricane Helene came through these mountains in September of 2024. I will not pretend the music fixes any of it. The mountains were here long before us and will outlast every one of our administrations. This is only what I had to offer: a private grief handed to seventy strangers, who took it up and gave it a body, and made it sound like something none of us could have made alone.

The full program note