Program Notes

There is a moment in every life when searching begins to sound less like a question and more like a way of listening.

This work follows that movement. It begins in darkness, where certainty has not yet arrived and every note is an act of orientation. The cello searches, questions, reaches, and finally surrenders—not in defeat, but in trust.

The electronic soundscape and audience participation gently dissolve the boundary between performer and listener, suggesting that listening itself may be a shared space we inhabit together.

Perhaps the deepest journeys are not outward at all. Perhaps they are the ones that reveal the vastness that has always existed within.

Duration: 10 minutes

Vastly Expanding Inward was written for Craig Hultgren to be performed at the North London Mining Office, Alma, Colorado.