PALINDROMES

Composer's Note:

Palindromes was composed at the Rockefeller Foundation Study Center in Bellagio, Italy, for the new-music ensemble Aequalis. As one might suspect from the title, the idea of "reversible" passages and processes is an important feature of Palindromes. In fact, the work's 14-minute duration is subdivided into two large sections, and these in turn into smaller units, all of which operate in "palindromic" ways with respect to one another. None of this need be apparent to listeners, and the works's surface is simply that of a recital piece, alternately virtuosic and lyrical. The premiere of Palindromes took place at the 1989 Bowdoin Summer Music Festival, and there have been subsequent performances in New York and London.