While hiking, I am always struck by the beautiful imagery created by shadows on the forest floor. These shadows often make even small trees seem larger than life, while at the same time creating a two-dimensional world out of something entirely three-dimensional. In Forest Shadows, I evoke these images through the use of long tremolos and arpeggiated chords. The piece moves from pastoral sections that evoke nature scenes by nineteenth-century French painters such as Theodore Rousseau (for example, his painting The Forest in Winter at Sunset), to more powerful moments that might be compared to images in works by Romantic landscape painters such as Caspar David Friedrich.

I also draw inspiration from performers. Since Makoto’s only request was that I write him a piece inspired by either the forest or wood, this was easy. Hearing him perform live, I also was captivated by his musicality and sensitivity, and also by the full, robust sound he elicits from his marimba.

Forest Shadows was commissioned by the ISGM New Music Commissioning Fund for Makoto Nakura.