The Paradox of Stillness

Joshua Altrock, Conductor; Nicholas Bentz, Violin; Benjamin Webster, Clarinet; Conner Shaw, Guitar; Milaena Martinez, Piano; Aidan Gold, Percussion

“The Paradox of Stillness” is about the suspension of time in ways that push the music inexorably forward. Both movements use only one scale each, and they both are fundamentally static in some musical element. The first movement is a dreamscape of distant, slowly morphing textures, and the second movement is a fast, tumultuous piece constructed almost entirely from small, repeated cells. However, all the elements that supposedly constitute stillness- lack of pulse in the first movement, repetition in the second- are the keys to the processes and transformations that sweep the music to larger and larger climaxes. It is through stillness that the piece gains the momentum to drive to its conclusion.