Sunset Boulevard

piano trio, 14’ (2015)

I. Flowers in the Sidewalk Cracks II. Drought III. Ocean

I sketched the ideas for this piece while living and working in Los Angeles, taking a “gap year” between my undergraduate and masters studies, during a period of intense writer’s block. I was struggling to make ends meet and the city seemed to be getting the better of me in every way. Sometimes it felt like I could only feel content when taking long walks through the central city, particularly through the affluent older neighborhood that was adjacent to the busy streets of my lower-middle-class one in typical American urban fashion. I loved the blooming and decaying purple jacaranda tree blossoms that filled up the massive cracks in the old sidewalks, torn up from underneath by overgrown tree roots and triple-digit heat. With these images in mind I wrote the themes that would later become this piece, the first movement in particular. 

Click here for perusal score.