Coin Flip (2020)

​Listen to the piece

• Instrumentation: Oboe, clarinet, alto saxophone, bass clarinet, bassoon. 

• Description: I wrote this piece for a contest the Civitasolis Reed Quintet was having over the summer. I started planning the piece right in the middle of the pandemic, thinking about how we were all stuck inside and morale could be quite low. One thing that has really helped is games - for instance, Nintendo released Animal Crossing: New Horizons on the Nintendo Switch in March, which is a wonderful game for families and friends who are both together and apart. Board games and card games are also great ways to help people cope, especially over the summer when there was a lot going on. In addition to this piece, I was writing several darker pieces that tried to tackle some of this, but I wanted the flip-side of the coin as well.

• I went for a more playful quality with these sketches, with the opening motif introduced in a short section, before the piece properly kicks off. The repeated staccato nature returns at the end of the piece as well, and rising fourths figure into transition sections around this motif. It is meant to be a short, quirky piece, that I hope instills a sense of fun, just as games do.

• The piece was recorded by the Civitasolis Reed Quintet for their Miniatures series, and premiered on November 27, 2020.