The following 4 movements are excerpted:
1 - you have to start slow before you can go fast 
(3 accordion mirror canons in pairs)  
00:00 - 04:06
2 - Are you aware? What are you aware of? 
(distorted canons are distributed across the ensemble) 
04:08 - 09:00
4 - Thought is the History of Language 
(unison playing becomes twisted and torqued antiphonal "chorusing") 
09:01 - 12:55
5 - don't worry; you can always begin again 
(a warped version of The Sacred Harp song "When I am Gone" by John Ellis emerges at the end of the piece) 
12:56 - 15:03
--
What I do when the world stops: 

Permission to really consider what was in front of me, in my future, but not too much in the future. That is too chaotic, too out of sight - over my horizon.

The way I see my future is an analogue for the way I know my past. The past is fixed, clear in some places, opaque in others, altogether invisible for much of the rest, and (like the future) totally beyond my control. My past is a metaphor for my vision of my future. In all honesty, it is not a 
metaphor at all. Both directions are finite.

The things that I am constantly consumed with when I make work return to me over and over and over, no matter how hard I try to rid myself of their infectious nature; they feel like a contagion to me, they are my epidemic, and I am pretty sure that at this point I will not fully recover from them. There is no vaccine or relief. These things are: how I remember my memories (what Toni Morrison calls "rememory"); the mechanisms of failure that inhabits the most mundane of tasks is filled with a potential for collapse; how little agency I think I have about my future (alla Agnes Callard); the only thing that I can be present for is the present; hope is an act of beauty to create empathy and connect with others (alla Elaine Scarry).

I like to think about how I make things, to think about how others make things, especially things made by those who are not musicians - to think about how others do what they do (which is not what I do) with the hope it might provide me with new ways for making work. It is important for 
me to understand as much as I can and allow it to inform/guide a lot of my creative acts...and then to say "fuck it - just fuck it all!" and do it. Failure is closeby, in every step, at every turn.

In many ways, my creative work is a metaphor for my lived life; trying really hard, preparing very intensively, allowing much to come to bear, and hoping. The score to "the future is finite" is adorned with the following two epigrams from books I was reading at the time of I was composing this piece:

"In the morning, 
as her consciousness streamed in with the sun, 
a vision came to her, 
unbidden but not unwelcome: 
of the ends of things, 
the time between now and then, 
the world without her."

from "Wayward" by Dana Spiotta
--
"The problem with sweetness is death.
The problem with everything is death."

from "frank: sonnets" by Diane Seuss
--
Commissioned by the Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum of the East for its 75th Anniversary season, with the generous support of Trish Maxson and Linda Rappaport. The piece is dedicated, with gratitude, to Donald Crockett. The performers were:

Conor Nelson, flute
Jacqueline Leclair, oboe
Garrick Zoeter, clarinet
Gilbert Dejean, bassoon
Leander Star, horn
Jessica Powell Eig, double bass

excerpts from "the future is finite" for wind quintet and double bass (2021-22)

This an easy way to get quick access to recent (& not-so-recent) works of mine. Contact me with any queries. REQUEST: Should you wish to play my work, I ask you include it on a program that reflect the values of belonging, and make an honest effort to be fully inclusive. Thank you.

(pronounced Road-HEE or Rhoad-DAH)

excerpts from "the future is finite" for wind quintet and double bass (2021-22)

Kurt Rohde