Ensemble: wind quintet

Written: summer-spring 2023

Duration: ca. 8’45”

Premiere: 4/10/2026 at Morrison Hall, UC Berkeley

Program Note

Murmurations are the complex shapes, images, figures, and patterns displayed when large flocks of birds fly together in one location. This piece is a collection of movements that depict different murmurations I observed while at the Hangang River in Seoul, South Korea. Characteristics of such observations include: a few birds flying in a specific motion, with the many soon following along; two different "images" merging together to form one; the illusion of a shifting 3D image; and a couple of birds that never join—externalities. Each murmuration depicted in the three separate movements mold these characteristics to produce music, whether through repetition, canons, fugues, or nauseating rhythms.