Program Note:

The first day that I arrived in Estonia, in late January, the ground was covered in this thick ice. In Ohio, we do not get ice like this, and so I was not able to even walk around without slipping and sliding. That day I fell on the ice, and then wrote this tune, thinking about how the little rocks in the ice somehow hurt worse than the fall itself, and wishing I could just pour rock salt on every sidewalk in the city. It did not take much time for me to begin to love the snow and ice. Even now that summer has arrived, I still miss the snow and ice that made the country such a pleasure.

There are a lot of inspirations behind this music, but during the rehearsals I found myself thinking of rock and video game music a lot. I may have been inspired a lot by these types of music without even realizing it. Thank you to Raul Sööt for giving me the chance to have this tune played by his ensemble at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.