Up to Eleven Songs (2020)

for violin, viola, cello, and three music boxes

This piece is a part of the Songs series that I have been working on since September 2019. Each piece is an etude exploring the deceptive nature of intuitive time that lies at the crossover of measurement and infinity, loneliness and dialogue, expectation and mistakes. Musicians coexist in a complex system of interrelations that are defined by varied levels of control over their own actions, which in turn influence the actions of others in an unpredictable manner. Through the constant, the uncontrolled and the unintentional, by swapping roles between the leader and those being led, the musicians are to discover a joint feeling of time movement without referring to a set measure, but rather trying to communicate to each other their inner, vulnerable and fundamentally undefinable feeling.

Commissioned by Aksenoff Family Foundation for Russian Music 2.0