About this Piece

“Spores take off toward unknown destinations, mate across types, and at least occasionally, give rise to new organisms—a beginning for new kinds. Spores are hard to pin down; that is their grace.” —Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World 

Spores is the second generation of a piece initially written in 2017. We had to cancel the premiere due to illness, and the intervening years have been dense and charged. I have definitely changed, and returning in 2022 to the unrealized 2017 score felt disorienting. I needed to reconceptualize and rework material in order to reconnect with the music. Most significantly, in my revisions I worked to make room for everyone in the ensemble to have more nuanced and varied listening and improvisational experiences, to give us space to explore “the spore-filled airy stratosphere” together. —Katherine Young