Light Delays

About Light Delays

A new work for the Formalist Quartet, to be premiered at a concert focusing on spatial music at UCSB in January of 2018, Light Delays is simultaneously inspired by my love of delay pedals and my love of astronomy. I wanted to see what would happen if I turned three members of the string quartet into a very complicated delay pedal for the cellist. Every note the cello plucks is echoed eight times throughout the rest of the quartet.

As I got writing, I happened to update my phone’s operating system, which resulted in receiving text message conversations out of order in an incredibly annoying way. This got me thinking about the delay in communications between, say, the earth and its satellites and astronauts, and the new logistics conversations will necessarily evolve to adapt to a 30 minute round trip for spoken messages between Mars and Earth.