Arroyo Seco (2022)

Form: Solo Instrumentation: guitar Year: 2022 Duration: 7" Premiere: 11/19/22 Traverse City Symphony concert series

Solo guitar piece, composed for and premiered by Matthew Cochran.

Program Notes

In the summer of 2020, while the pandemic raged across the world, my family and I was fortunate to spend time in the magical landscape of southern Utah, something we were able to repeat the following year. During those times, we were able to explore some of our nation’s most notable parks free of crowds. It was while camping deep in the red dirt wilderness of Bear’s Ears National Monument – the only National Park lands to have decreased – that the first sketches of what would become Arroyo Seco were birthed. The piece was completed by the end of 2021 in Interlochen, Michigan, when several feet of snow crept up our door in a very cold winter.

I have long been fascinated how the defining feature of the Great Basin and the Southwest is water, despite its almost complete absence. Water has shaped every feature of a vast and inscrutable landscape, yet hardly any of it flows except during brief rains, and – in the case of the Basin – almost none of it leaves. I was and am moved by the fact that some of the most extensive civilizations on the continent, prior to the arrival of Europeans, flourished in these regions, at least during times when water was slightly more plentiful. Many still do.

Not long after I got to know that man who would later edit the piece, guide me through it, and premiere it here. That man is Matthew Cochran, our daughter’s guitar teacher and advisor, and a dear and trusted friend to our family, not to mention an incredible guitarist. It is my honor to have him premiere my most significant work for solo guitar here in Michigan.


Past Events

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B-flat (2011)

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Archipelago (2002)