credo petrified for amplified solo cello
(2016/rev. 2018/rev. 2020/rev. 2022/rev. 2023)
credo petrified is a work for amplified solo cello lasting about 9 minutes. This is a revised version of a revision of a revision of a revision of the original piece. The piece may be played without amplification. It is best to perform the work in a somewhat resonant space. As a child, my family would go on summer cross-country trips. With five children in my family, these trip began with camping in tents, moving to a pop-up camper, and eventually to a very small, very cramped, very used Mini-Winnebago. Being a family of "Star Trek" fans (the original series!), we called this camper the USS Mustard Seed. The Petrified Forest was a favorite location of my mother's. Remembering those trips, to that location, with my family, with my mother (long since dead), of trees (that are even longer since dead), makes me consider the unadorned ritual of forgotten deaths, of slow disintigration, of ancient music created for worshipping ("I believe in one...") that is dying its own gradual death at a glacial pace becoming sonic dust.