Click the second image to listen to an excerpt from The Epoch Interludes.

Title: The Epoch Interludes

Year: 2019

Instrumentation: Solo Piano

Duration: 9' 00"

Commissioned by Lewis Banks as part of "Afterlife" for Alto Saxophone and Piano.

The Epoch Interludes are a set of four pieces for solo Piano that are interspersed throughout a larger series of works called Afterlife (written for Alto Saxophone and Piano) which is inspired by David Eagleman’s short story cycle ‘Sum: Forty tales from the afterlives’ that comprises of several speculative stories that postulate a diverse range of scenarios in which humans might find themselves in the afterlife.

Each Epoch Interlude follows the narrative expressed in the chapter “Conservation”, which tells of the genesis of the universe. Epoch Interlude 1 focuses on the birth of a quark, which marks the beginning of the universe. This interlude attempts to capture the vast silence and stillness before the creation of the universe and the miraculous inception of this single quark. Epoch Interlude 2 develops the narrative of the single quark which makes its first attempts at acting upon its new-found existence. This interlude outlines the emptiness of space into which the quark is born. Epoch Interlude 3 outlines the full creation of the universe as the single quark energetically zips around space and time generating and constructing everything that exists in the universe. Epoch Interlude 4 concludes the creation of the universe as the single quark, fatigued after creating the cosmos, slows to a stand-still in order to rest.