About This Offer

Commissioned by the great violinist, Rachel Barton Pine, Incident on Larpenteur Avenue is a single-movement violin sonata/tone poem that explores the events and impact of the 2016 killing of Philando Castile by a Minnesota police officer. Castile’s murder affected me deeply; it filled me with a sense of rage and sadness. The composing process was very cathartic for me and helped me to clarify my feelings about the horrible incident.

I wanted to create an ominous atmosphere of general foreboding in the exposition and the recapitulation - this is marked by the nervous and agitated piano pattern which accompanies a portentous violin melody that soars above. As the interplay between the violin and piano becomes more rhythmically intricate, the listener is led to the middle section, which is not a “development” per se but rather, a literal musical description of Castile’s killing and a lament reflecting the sadness of his losing his life. The recapitulation restates the baleful mood of the exposition, as though to say “this can happen again”.

The piece was premiered by Rachel Barton Pine and pianist Matthew Hagle in 2018, for the Rachel Barton Pine recording “Blues Dialogues”.

• The license includes:

  • 2 printed copies (please contact us if you need more)
  • Licensee is required to report all performance dates and locations prior to the performance
  • Sharing of digital files is not allowed