tuesday (2026)

Written: February 2026 — May 2026

Duration: 5’

Instrumentation: 0.1.1.1 + 1.0.0. + perc.[1] + pf + strings [1.1.1.1.1.]

Performance History

June 7, 2026: live reading with Albany Symphony cond. David Alan Miller — Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC), Troy, NY — “First Draughts” Orchestrating the 21st Century Workshop, American Music Festival

Program Notes

“tuesday” is inspired by the children’s book of the same name by David Wiesner. The book features surreal illustrations of frogs that mysteriously float in the air on their lily pads in the middle of the night, completely absent of words. Wiesner invites the reader to narrate their own story with the illustrations, which allows for new outcomes each time the book is revisited.

In Wiesner’s 1992 Caldecott Speech, he said “I’ve heard heated arguments over what Tuesday sounds like. Some people are sure it’s a silent squadron of frogs gliding through a still summer night. Others are equally positive it’s full of zooming cartoon sound effects accompanied by Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries”.

Growing up, getting to “read” Tuesday was so exciting because it was new every time, and I had the freedom to change the story however I wanted. As an adult, I have been reflecting on childlike impulsivity and whimsy and how I can tap into it in my own music. This piece is sort of a musical narration of Wiesner’s book. It’s not a score per se, but more an effort to capture what the world of levitating frogs sounds like.

In short, it sounds like oboe, stacked 9ths, and twinkly ticking clocks.

“The truth is that the imagination needs no outside stimulus. To watch children at play is to see the mind in all its uninhibited glory. Growing up in New Jersey, my friends and I re-created our world daily. The neighborhood would become anything from the far reaches of the universe to a prehistoric jungle. To believe that giant Pterodactyls were swooping down on us required only a small leap of faith.” — David Wiesner