Scored for Five Vibraphones and Three Crystal Glasses

Completed in 2005
Duration: 8 minutes

Premiered in 2005 in Bloomington, Indiana
Eric Guinivan, Conductor

Program Note
This piece combines the transparent texture of five bowed vibraphones with the similarly glassy sound of four wine glasses to create an eerie and ethereal sound world.  Musically speaking, Dream Suspended is a study on pedal point: a high E6 is sustained throughout the piece as a single sonority slowly appears in the vibraphones.  This chord first appears only within the upper octave of the instrument, but as the wine glasses enter to adopt the high E, the sonority expands to use the entire range of the instrument.  The listener is left in a suspended state as the sonority gradually develops towards a large crescendo that finally breaks through the static pianissimo texture as the piece begins to draw to a close.