Freund: Stirrings

Winner of the 1997 Rodrigo Riera International Guitar Composition Competition. Stirrings — both the title and the music itself should conjure up several different images: programmatically, the barely perceptible beginnings of an idea coming to life, the faint but irrepressible awakenings of an emotion; structurally, the mixing together of elements which retain their identity, no matter how broken-up and “stirred” together. Although a traditional large-scale fast-slow-fast form is apparent, the mixings and crossings of many micro-sections throughout the piece give it a variegated, catalytic surface. A preliminary version of Stirrings was composed in 1990, but was substantially revised in 1993 with the help of Alan Thomas, who premiered the work in February of 1994.