In Two Places

One thing you'd never expect to do after graduating from college, getting married and being a homeowner is to move back in with your parents. But, as it turned out, my husband and I found ourselves sin this situation in the fall of 2013. Around the same time, I decided to finally follow my gut and go back to school for what I'd always wanted to do music composition. Having a background as a jazz trumpet player, I luckily landed in a graduate assistantship in the jazz department at Texas Christian University while pursuing my master's in composition. As great as it was, I felt pulled in several directions, not having the typical schedule of a composer, but not having the life of a performance major either. In this season of my life, I experienced conflicting feelings attached to experiences with adulthood vs. adolescence, homogeneity vs. diversity, and the jazz approach vs. the contemporary classical approach. I so many ways, I felt literally in two places at once! In Two Places begins with an oboe feature and utilizes a motivic tambourine part throughout the piece. It is comprised of two main sections, both with strong melodies and a near constant eighth-note motor. Present throughout the composition is a fight between the major and minor modes. The last statement is purposefully written to convey ambiguity.