Composed March – April 2020, written for Joseph Vaz.

Joseph was my student (on string bass!) in the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra for three years, and since my departure from that position, he and I have remained in touch and become good friends. His senior year of high school, we collaborated on two concerto performances, the Mozart d minor and the Gottschalk “Grand Tarantella”.

Sometime during the first year of Joseph’s master’s degree program at CCM, we started discussing the idea of my writing a piece for him and eventually settled on the idea of a sonata. He gave me lots of listening homework to fill the gaps in my knowledge about the existing repertoire, which I diligently completed, sending him regular commentary and analysis as I listened through his list.

I had not intended to compose the sonata until much later in 2020, but my work was able to begin ahead of schedule due to Covid. For very unfortunate reasons, Seattle had one of the earliest lockdowns and it quickly became apparent that we were in it for the long haul. I quickly pivoted to “composer mode” and the sonata was the first major work of what turned out to be an abnormally prolific compositional period for me.

Being thoroughly acquainted with Joseph’s virtuosity, I held nothing back, neither musically nor technically. I could not have asked for a more fulfilling collaboration, and I rank this piece among my most important instrumental works, along with my symphony and horn/viola/piano trio.