On Taos

15 minutes

• native flutes and digeridoo, flute, cello, piano

“On Taos” was composed for Robert Mirabal and the Taos Chamber Music Group. It incorporates both composed and improvised music, featuring Mirabal on several flutes and digeridoo.

I spent several years living in the expansive refuge of Taos and her sister cities, and it seemed fitting that I compose a work related to my time with her, getting to know her people, her history, her landscape...Taos has a way of forcing your perspective into present wonder, and simultaneously easing your mind into nostalgia. By exploring Pueblo music, the Alabados sung by the Spanish settlers, the famed Taos hum, and landmarks like the gorge, Blue Lake, and Taos Mountain, I attempt to paint my personal feelings upon Taos’ canvas. And in that way “On Taos” is a musical collage of memory, whereby one flips the pages of an old photo album and history clutters the space as though it were the present moment.