string quartet

Commission: Radio France

Winter Birds (my Tenth String Quartet) was written during January and February 2005 at my farm in central Ontario. This is the quietest time of the year with much snow and temperatures that descend at night to 20 or 25 degrees below zero Celsius. There are few birds and animals; only the occasional howl of a wolf or coyote and a few visitors to the bird feeders: chickadees and sparrows, occasionally a blue jay or morning dove. Winter Birds is an attempt to suggest the night and morning of this winter soundscape outside my window, not in real time but in the compressed form of a string quartet.