Details

Year: 2019
Duration: 16’
Instrumentation: string quartet
Commissioner: Glenstone Museum & Foundation
Premiere: Abeo Quartet in fall 2019

Moonshot (2019)

Movements

I. July 16, 1969
II. July 20, 1969
III. July 21, 1969

Program Notes

In 2018, I was introduced to the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, MD. It was a magical experience, and it was here that I encountered On Kawara’s Moon Landing triptych. The juxtaposing colors, precise gestures, powerful historical context, and placement of the pieces encapsulated me in the space. I have only seen photos and historical artifacts from the Apollo 11 mission, but experiencing Kawara’s pieces, each completed on the day of each event, made me feel frozen in a moment in time — almost as if the works themselves were artifacts from the mission, or more broadly, living relics from a watershed moment in human history. 

Experiencing Kawara’s Moon Landing Triptych led me to envision a three-movement work for string quartet which is now titled “Moonshot.” Each movement is titled with a date painted on each canvas: I. July 16, 1969, launch; II. July 20, 1969, the lunar landing; and III. July 21, 1969, the day people on Earth celebrated and reflected on this historic moment. I wanted to illustrate the feeling of each point in time, using the paintings as a direct connection to those events, and capturing the wonder of art and space exploration that Kawara’s work evoked in me. 

The piece was commissioned by the Glenstone Museum and premiered in 2019 by the Abeo Quartet. The world-premiere recording was filmed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and produced for the 2019 Smithsonian “Year of Music.”