While in residence at Bennington College in the fall of 1997, I was asked to compose a score for the choreographer Laura Gates-Carlson. I conceived of a work for Piano, Clarinet and Vibraphone. Unfortunately the score was not used. After some trimming, condensation and reorganization, the work became a small three movement work for Clarinet and Piano.

In the first movement long streamlined lines move through the compass of the clarinet. The second movement takes these lines and removes their middles. They expand, stretch and extend to extremes akin to Webern's vocal writing. Notes are held out, separate thoughts that merge with the resonance of the piano. The third movement is a bit more playful, vain and oddly hunorous, clumsy. Originally, I was put in the mind of Machaut's polyphonic works, hocketted, syncopated, yet horrendously dissonant.

These miniatures recieved their premiere from clarinettist Rob Hadesbeck and pianist Ineke Cante at the New England Conservatory in the fall of 1998.