“Body Memory (2021) is a series of seven miniatures for string quartet, six of which were written during my stay at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in the summer of 2021. Throughout this time, I was interested in imagining old (or even ancient) music, the people who might have made it, and what could have inspired them to turn to song. I became fascinated by the idea that we contain traces of our ancestors, both recent and distant, in our instincts and our physical forms; in some fantastical sense, I felt that our bodies remember what our minds cannot. The work’s title is also a nod to one of my favorite songs by Björk: in her “Body Memory,” Björk describes allowing instinct to take over during times of stress. The fast pace of the Bowdoin Festival meant that I had to compose faster than ever before; this piece is the result of my attempt to let my instincts lead me through a piece from start to finish.

Body Memory is a loose theme and variations constructed in an arch form. The first movement, Invocation, presents the melody upon which the entire piece is based. Sky Song features the second violinist overtop an airy and fluttering trio accompaniment. The cello solo in Earth Song is performed entirely pizzicato and is set against a grainy background. In The Mind Forgets, the first movement theme dissolves. A rippling trio accompaniment is the backdrop for the subdued viola solo in Ocean Song. In Sun Song, the other players mimic the first violinist as the music transforms from faint to piercingly bright. The opening theme returns in its entirety in The Body Remembers, but it is obscured (or, at times, eclipsed) by reminiscences of the destinations visited along the way.”