Banking

Written for the Brentano String Quartet, Banking is representative of my persistent interest in Man Ray’s idea of the “practical dreamer,” a kind of alchemist of the everyday. I simply wanted to make a piece that sounded like a television commercial for a bank, to turn something disruptive and annoying into an object of aesthetic attention. Recent events in the financial sector may color this piece differently now—and I don’t mind that—but I can’t say I had an extracurricular motive for this piece. The voices are those of my former Princeton theory precept students.