Gradual (2016)

I visited Idaho for the first time in 2015. As I traveled around the southwest of the state, I was struck immediately by the feeling of gentle environmental variation. When I got back to New York City, where I was living at the time, I looked through the photographs I'd taken of my trip and I realized I had only a record of the visually dramatic and extremely varied highlights. What was missing was all that lay in-between: the extremely subtle gradations of landscape I'd witnessed. It's that sense of “the in-between” which stuck in my mind whilst composing the work.

Gradual was commissioned by the Boise Chamber Music Society and the Boise State University Department of Music for the Alexander String Quartet. The first performance took place on October 7, 2016 in the Morrison Center Recital Hall, Boise State University, Idaho, USA. The premiere of the revised version was given by the Carducci Quartet on September 23, 2022 in Cardiff University Concert Hall as part of the Vale of Glamorgan Festival.

Programme note © 2022 Tarik O’Regan