Quiet in the Land

Originally written for flute, clarinet, English horn, viola, and cello in 2003 during the invasion of Iraq, Quiet in the Land asked how quiet the spirit of our land might be with the inconclusive harmony of the piece to suggest anambiguous answer. Fourteen years later, disquiet in the land has led to a return to this, and the scale of an adequate musical response now demands the expressive and coloristic palette of a full symphony orchestra. Some of thestructure and a few fragments of the original composition survive in the orchestral work of the same title, and the harmonic language remains ambiguous. Composed especially for the Phoenix Symphony, Tito Munoz, Music Director withthe generous support of the Phoenix Symphony Commissioning Club.