Moiré for String Quintet [10']

for either 2 violins, viola and 2 celli, OR 2 violins, 2 violi, and cello

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In physics and mathematics as well as in fields as apparently disparate as fabrics and photography, a moiré pattern refers to a visibly evident secondary pattern created when two identical, most often transparent ones, are overlaid and slightly displaced or rotated with respect to one another.

Moiré, named for that phenomenon, explores the shifting perceptions of scale and texture within the ensemble and the musical iridescence of its musical materials.  As such it is an unabashedly tonal work for two violins, viola and two ‘celli OR for two violins, two viola and cello, in which melodies and tonalities appear to shift and give rise to otherwise invisible patterns that gracefully and mysteriously surface, submerge and resurface.

Moiré  was composed in 2013 at Copland House under the auspices of the Aaron Copland Foundation,