Program Note:  

In 2011, my alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, commissioned a trio for clarinet, viola, and piano for the touring group called Curtis on Tour. The result was a Book of Days, a nostalgia-driven suite of seven thematically connected movements in a convivially conservative, mid-20th-century style inspired by my years there first as a student and then as a teacher.  

I finished composing the first movement on a Monday; so, as a placeholder, and meaning nothing by it, I jotted that day atop the manuscript. Returning to work the next day, I began to think about the Babylonians, and how they named the days after the planets that they could see. I mused that nostalgia is a lot like looking out into space, and that feelings can be at once as close as one’s heart and as far away as the stars. I released myself from the burden of particularizing the emotions explored with descriptive titles by giving them the names of the days of the week. I soon realized that, by doing so, I was able to recall those feelings, both beautiful and stark, with more nuance.

After the composing was done, I wrote a program note brimming with anecdotes and ideas that I thought were important. Words, words, words — so many words. Too many. Returning to the suite to prepare it for publication in 2023, I realized that all those words were an attempt to explain feelings I had shared more meaningfully in music. So, I threw the words out. Once again, I felt free; free this time to forget, because, in the end, it is music that remembers everything — the things we can see and those we cannot.