echo over the voice (2020) for two bassoon

as i’m sure you’ve read, i’m consider myself a failed orchestral bassoonist and harbor complex feelings in relationship to the instrument i spent some 12 years trying to get good enough at to play it professionally in orchestras. there were many reasons for this but i think the biggest reason i could not cut it as a bassoonist wasn’t necessarily technical, but mental and physical.

between 2013 and 2020, i avoided writing solo bassoon works, believing for some reason that a separation of my composer and performer halves would make both stronger (it didn’t).

by happenstance, Tuple Duo, went on tour in 2019 and performed in Pittsburgh. Rachel Elliott was my private bassoon teacher when I was a student at the Kinhaven Music School in summer 2009 (or 2008?) and we had a chance to reconnect at her performance. eventually i floated the idea of collaborating on a new piece for bassoon and was thrilled to be able to reconnect in such a meaningful way so many moons later.

echo over the voice was composed in 2020 for the Tuple Duo and finished just before the onset of the Coronavirus Pandemic.

the score can be purchased here

Tuple Duo performing in Pittsburgh at the Irma Freeman Center for Imagination.