Lucid Innocuous (2007) Instrumentation: violin, cello, piano, electric guitar and live electronics Length: 8:30 Premiere:      May 1, 2007      Tuesday Night New Music      New England Conservatory, Boston, MA      Jenny Banks, violin; Scott Halligan, cello; Jessica Chen, piano; Dan VanHassel, guitar Audio: Studio Recording      Shaw Pong Liu, violin; Scott Halligan, cello; Jessica Chen, piano; Dan VanHassel, guitar Program Note: Lucid Innocuous is part of my ongoing exploration of integrating improvisation into composed music in new and different ways. I began sketching some of the ideas for this piece the summer before I began studying composition in college, and eventually put it aside to focus on other projects. There just didn’t seem to be a place for the rock-influenced patterns which I wanted to use in this piece in the curriculum and in hindsight, I didn’t have the technique to pull off what I really wanted to do. Almost six years later, at the end of the final year in my masters program, I came back to these ideas and wrote Lucid Innocuous. My two years at New England Conservatory opened my eyes to the possibilities of both live electronics and non-jazz contemporary improvisation which have profoundly affected my musical horizons and finally gave me the means to accomplish what I had wanted to do all along.