Palindrome of Loss
for cello
Op. 29 (2025)

As the title suggests, this piece is an exact palindrome, so it is the same music both forwards and backwards. I had been fascinated with this compositional technique for some time, having found it not only in the music of some of my favorite living composers, but also in the music of one of my favorite metal bands, Silent Planet.

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The trick with writing this kind of music is that you may find you particularly like how one idea sounds going forward, but the retrograde may not. And to make matters worse, you may find a string of ideas that sound good in one direction, but do not in reverse. It is a finicky way of writing.

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I had the chance to premiere this work at Benedictine College in April of 2025