January 2021

  January 2021 tells the story of a Renaissance, a journey from death to rebirth. In the wake of the most recent global pandemic, I found myself at the nadir of my life in many ways. During the onset of the lockdowns, I moved out of my college apartment back to my hometown, spending the final months of my senior year of university in my bedroom. Festivals, tours, recitals, graduation ceremonies, end-of-year celebrations all disappeared. I began graduate school in that same bedroom, 1200 miles away from my classmates, learning and teaching via Zoom.

Outside that room, the nation reckoned with racial justice, a fraught election, a deadly insurrection, an impeachment, and an inauguration. The world felt the death toll of thousands per day—underscoring every aspect of life. I watched it all on a television screen.

Of course, many reading this will find something in common with this pandemic story. Something will resonate, connecting total strangers through disparate, yet shared experience. This piece taps into that resonance, a desire to connect, to hold a loved one or just to make eye contact with someone on the street. I took these things for granted in lockdown at home.

In January 2021, I felt the weight of everything—my isolation, the toll of the pandemic on my family, my grandfather ill with COVID-19 in the hospital, and me composing music with no performance dates in sight. However, the tide began to turn when I picked up a cello for the first time. I became electrified by the deep, rich harmonies the instrument could produce, resonating with the body of the instrument. I remembered what it was like not just to play or hear music—I felt the music.

  January 2021 is a piece ultimately made of hope. The music stems from improvisations I made on a cello during the darkest time of my life; however, the piece grows lighter and lighter, finding the feeling of hope I so desperately needed. After the Black Death, the Renaissance exploded in Europe. After the 1918 Pandemic, the Roaring Twenties sprung up in the United States. This piece represents that same hope that births from the darkest times.

Difficulty: Hard | Duration: 10 minutes