Boosey & Hawkes
There's a feeling I have when writing music that whenever I make a choice about something, even if relatively small, that had I chosen differently, I would have sent the piece off in another direction: the piece I finally write is the path I cut through this virtual forest of alternatives. Departures and Arrivals mirrors this process. Each of the six movements is an alternative path that starts with the same beginning material. In this way, one could think of Departures and Arrivals not so much as six independent movements, but as six alternate versions of the same piece. In the first three pieces (a tune, a shift, a dialogue) this is quite literal: all start the same way (or nearly the same), but then branch off in different directions. In the following three pieces (a transformation, a reconfiguration, a glimpse) this process is somewhat abstracted: in these instances the beginning material is either transformed or repositioned - but again, this is like the actual process of composing where the first idea one thinks of is not necessarily the first idea one ultimately hears.
- Sebastian Currier
