I. CityPulse

II. NightFall

III. RushHour

CityStrains is my musical response to the fast-paced stress and excitement of city life—our great modern urban adventure, if you will. The clashing of different cultures, fashions, appearances, attitudes, architectures...how does it all hold together?

The piece has three movements (fast-slow-fast) and lasts about 24 minutes. The first movement, "CityPulse", evokes the energy and bustle of the day, the traffic, the crowds, all in constant movement. Juxtaposition marks the essential flow of the music as a sunrise of chordal outbursts suddenly gives way to brass fanfares, which in turn dissolve to a motoric hubbub in the strings. The music continually strains to ascend. At one point there is a kaleidoscope of popular styles ranging from Mariachi to Rap to Rock, plus several in-between! Stress ultimately gives way to serenity in the coda as the strings intone a chant in a four part round. But then the movement closes with a startling wink of descending energy.

"NightFall," the second movement, is a nocturne of loneliness inspired by the dazzling night sky and city lights atop Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. The flip side to living around 10 million people is an occasional sense of overwhelming personal isolation. The movement begins with night sounds that feature the woodwinds. Then the music dissolves into a plaintive melody accompanied by two alternating chords and colored by the harp and celesta.

The third movement, "RushHour," is a wild ride through traffic, a veritable tone poem to this bane of our urban existence:

The morning commute commences with a rousing energetic scramble; but driving over a hilltop suddenly reveals the dreaded panorama of gridlock traffic backed up at a signal; horns, car engines, impatience continue until...Green light! (the stroke of the triangle) and smooth sailing...which lasts but shortly as the familiar stop and go traffic pattern establishes itself; we enter the zone of the "Car Radio Web" (competing car radios blare the pop music kaleidoscope from the first movement )...mounting tempers; a major collision triggers a SIG Alert and other assorted collisions; traffic helicopters and sirens surround the scene; the excitement dies and cars slowly begin to move; a brief coda ends the symphony in a blur of traffic.