I was commissioned by the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition to write a piece for their brand new Grossman Ensemble, and on its first concert. The instrumentation is flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone, horn, two percussion, piano, harp, and string quartet — with all the customary doublings included. When I saw (bass) clarinet and (baritone) saxophone on the list, I resolved that it was finally time to write an in memoriam piece for Lee Hyla, who was one of my best friends — as that's the instrumentation of We Speak Etruscan, one of the coolest pieces ever written by anyone. The piece puts things that resemble Lee's licks together with things like my licks ("Self-Portrait as Lee Hyla"), and this is how it turned out — the story of the first movement is Lee-like licks encroaching into my licks, become more complete each time, and taking over the climax. The ending of the movement is a root position D major triad, in reference to Lee's Violin Concerto. Also at 18:18, the bari sax and bcl duo thing happens again. What a fantastic performance, and, wow, multiple cameras. The conductor is Ben Bolter.
