Babylon, Our Own is written for Kronos Quartet and David Krakauer, and inspired by their passionate and masterful playing of diverse styles of music. I wrote the piece having in mind their individual characteristics as performers (Krakauer's ecstatic high register, David Harrington's uncanny responsiveness in dialogue-like sections, John Sherba's rare ability to carve a shortest phrase into a precise musical statement, Hank Dutt's most soulful solos, and Jeff Ziegler's most powerful triple-stops and superhuman rhythmic precision). That resulted in a piece in which times, places and cultures intersect to celebrate music as the language I feel most comfortable with, a language that has brought all of us together.
