Cyclic

Year: 2026

Duration: c. 12 minutes

Instrumentation: string quartet, electronics

Premiere information: 27 April 2026, Folklore Hoxton, London

The Jasmine Quartet - JOYRIDE

Mira Steenbrugge - violin 1
Amber Correa - violin 2
Becca Marr - viola
Ezra Escobar - cello

Thomas Shorthouse - technology consultant

Notes: Cyclic uses recording and playback to examine tropes about the seasons, memory, and different philosophies about time. By superimposing the past and present, the quartet draws attention to the ways the past materially and linearly affects the present, but still cycles through the same seasons, representing a somewhat circular view of time.

During the composition process, I was thinking about the difficulties many have with grief as they approach the anniversary of an event, as well as the anxiety of noticing how the seasons themselves have changed in living memory due to climate change - however, Cyclic always ends with a raucous, joyful spring, with all its connotations of hope, new life, and rebirth as we move forward into the unknown.