Hold Down the Fort (2019) was written for Eric He 何尊豪 (Eastman School of Music) at the Brevard Music Center. I was absolutely enthralled by his performance at that year’s concerto competition, so when he struck up a casual conversation with me and suggested that I should write him a piece, I jumped at the opportunity. I was not extremely familiar with solo multi-percussion repertoire at the time, but Eric was extremely helpful and gracious throughout the process and showed me pieces that were cornerstones of the genre. I quickly became in awe of how complex and impressive a lot of the percussion set-ups were, with dozens of instruments sprawling across or around the performers, almost looking like artillery or a military fort. This soon became the inspiration for the piece, which has four powerful, explosive sections interspersed with more lyrical, melancholy passages. Despite consisting solely of unpitched percussion, I was struck by how much pitch there actually is in these instruments and wanted to develop a melodic motif throughout. The piece ends with an intense repeat ad-lib. section——the build-up, pacing, and other music parameters with which the performer can really play around with.
