OFFSHOOTS

for Mark Friello (2024)

I wrote this work for a Choral Writing class at UNT in the Fall 2024, after I’d already been working on GTM1 for a year. I had written many drafts of polytonal/arrhythmic settings of the Robert Lax text: “every night in the world…” (which is, of course, one of the central texts of GTM1). For nearly two months, my professor insisted it wasn’t working. I kept toying with it, changing the voice leading with more imitation and easier intervals. And then one day, I cracked. After a particularly rough feedback session (during which I kept nodding and thanking), I silently decided to throw it all away and start fresh. A piano vamp I wrote for another project in 2011 popped into my head. I don’t know why. It’s in 5/4, it’s fast, it’s jolly, and instantly I’m scribbling down the rhythm and melody of the opening measures of this new for Mark Friello as the professor has already moved on to another student’s piece. Class ended, I didn’t say goodbye to anyone, and I walked across the street to the practice rooms where the entirety of this new draft got written in 2 hours. When you’ve been thinking about something (someone) for your whole life, it’s easy to quickly distill your feelings about it (my father) down to a 5-minute piece of music, especially when pissed off. Material from those drafts I threw away made their way into GTM1's opening movements (turns out they were very singable with the right amount of rehearsal), along with much of the final 5/4 version of the choral work. This supercut of all the iterations of “every night” shows just how integral my work during that class was to GTM1. Still, this standalone version of for Mark Friello is complete in its own right. I’m incredibly grateful to Dr. Marques L. A. Garrett and UNT University Singers for taking on this challenge (even the easier version is difficult) and premiering the piece. (They did a reading of the piece at the end of the Fall 2024 semester, which didn’t go so great (not their fault, it’s a hard piece!) , so I was shocked when Dr. Garrett emailed me almost a year later to ask for the score so that they could premiere the work in Spring 2026.) I’m also grateful to my professor; even though I was angry at the time, they were right about many things. Their critiques helped me realize I should stop writing ABOUT my feelings and instead write THROUGH them. This melody was the best thing I wrote in my two and a half years at UNT, and GTM1 wouldn’t be half of what it is without it.