marking punctuations (2018) for string quartet

marking punctuations is about language being divided. A lot of my music features flurries of motion and moments of sustain, but as I wrote this string quartet, I was thinking especially about speech, and how the ways that we punctuate it create meaning. What eventually took shape was a series of miniatures inspired by different punctuation marks. To me, each mark evokes a different character, structure, or gesture, and I modeled each of these short pieces on the ways and contexts in which this mark is used rhetorically. Sometimes, a solo instrument will soliloquize in long eloquent lines; other times, instruments will interrupt each other, as if conversing or arguing or imitating each other. In the last movement, a lyrical melodic line is broken up as gestures from previous movements reemerge, and these interjections fracture the music until it can be punctuated no further.
​
i. hesitating, stuttering
ii. (whispering)
iii. shouting! clamoring!
iv. abbreviating abbrvtng. abbrv. a.
v. antiphon: responding
vi. pausing; reflecting
vii. disintegrating…
viii. inquiring?
ix. suspending. ceasing.
x. punctuations become marked

The Rosco String Quartet performs marking punctuations in April 2019

---

---

selected performances 
Mar. 2022 — Loop38 Texas Composer Collaborative, Houston, TX
Mar. 2020 — Paul Novak's Senior Recital, Shepherd School of Music, Houston, TX
Apr. 2019 — Rosco String Quartet, Who can do anything after Beethoven?, Salt Lake City, UT
Apr. 2019 — Amaranth Quartet, Bend, Bent, Break, Center for New Music, San Francisco, CA
Jul. 2018 — Bowdoin International Music Festival, Studzinski Concert Hall, Brunswick, ME
Apr. 2018 — Shepherd School of Music Spring Composer’s Forum, Rice University, Houston, TX

selected honors
Amaranth Quartet Call for Scores, Winner
Rosco String Quartet 2018 Call for Scores, Winner 
Loop38 Composer Collaborative, Selected Work
Charles Ives Concert Series Call for Scores, Finalist