Michael H. J. van der Sloot

Almost nothing is as unsettling of an experience as a sense of impending danger in complete calm. For instance: laying completely still in bed, wide awake because you know that there’s a monster in the closet; feeling something watch you from within a quiet forest; losing your appetite for breakfast because you’re dreading that exam once you get to class. This piece seeks to evoke that sense of anxiety and anticipation, and the foreboding feeling of terrifying inevitability that accompanies it, while maintaining the faux-tranquility that heightens the tension. Night Music makes extensive use of aleatoric techniques, and often utilizes a hybrid of metric and ametric schemes, sometimes simultaneously. Special thanks to the Escher String Quartet for the premiere of this work (this recording) in March 2016 and asking me to write it.