Short Stories

I’ve always been fascinated with the writing of Milan Kundera, particularly his essays and short stories. His innate ability to write collections of seemingly disparate short stories while keeping a central theme is, to me, what sets his works apart from his contemporaries. It was my goal to achieve something similar in a musical context.

While there are common motivic threads throughout this piece, the work is meant to be a collection of short sections, each with its own story and character development. Short Stories is made up of an introduction (prologue), six short stories based on elaborations of the introduction, and a coda (epilogue).

Short Stories was commissioned by the Wilkes Central High School Band under the direction of Andrew Craft. it was premiered in March of 2008 in Wilkesborow, North Carolina.

Program Note by composer