Instrumentation: saxophone quartet (SATB)

Duration: 13’

Program notes

Move With Me is about the many things movement means to me and some of the people in my life, including the different relationships we have to energy and dance.

I. YOUR MOVE

I’m often drawn to people with much higher levels of extroversion and ambient energy than me (y’all know who you are!). Sometimes their energy sweeps me up into my own high energy state and sometimes it can be a challenge for me to be around. This movement embodies that high energy—hyper, positive, head-spinning, to-and-fro, quick to break into dance. At times the music grows a bit anxious, which is what my people sometimes experience when I begin to shrink into my shell, overstimulated.

II. MY MOVE

Represents slower energetic and emotional rhythms. Straightforward emotional expression can be a challenge at times, with many stops and starts to work out how to feel and how to describe it. Movement (walking, hiking, dancing alone), on ones own terms, can often be a gateway to understanding feelings. The beginning of MY MOVE has a spacious but somewhat hesitant character. A pensive lopsided groove that gradually warms and unfolds helps unlock the initial hesitancy leading eventually to an intense emotional outpouring after which the music flows more easily and eloquently, bringing us eventually to a new place—a small oasis of calm and understanding.

III. OUR MOVE

The stars are finally aligned: I’ve got what I need, my people have what they need, and movement together can be a celebration, which frequently breaks out into dance, whether Out, or just being silly together at home. The movement is mostly a down and dirty groove, occasionally a little silly for its surface-level seriousness (like someone doing something goofy with a straight face), with an interlude to slow down and smell the flowers.