Flights of Fancy, Op. 23 (2009)

Program Notes:

Opus 23, “Flights of Fancy”, came about in an unexpected way. At the beginning of my sophomore year of high school, my homeroom teacher Lisa Harris decided to host “Talent Fridays” in an effort to enliven the tedium and pointlessness of the ten-minute homeroom period. Various students solved Rubik’s Cubes, Moonwalked, and displayed all manner of skills. Three of us, however, were musicians. Emily Church, Cailley Culotta, and I (note the alphabetical closeness of our last names!) played flute, viola, and clarinet respectively. Now, at the time, I was unfamiliar with “chamber music” as a general concept and so rather than searching for a piece for us to play, I elected to write one myself.

As we were rehearsing in the band room one morning before school began, my band director walked in and asked what we were playing, sounding surprised that I had written it myself. Later that year, he encouraged me to submit it to various composition contests. Thus, “Flights of Fancy” was a winner of the 2010 UMass Lowell CMENC Annual Youth Composition Festival.