A Circle With No Circumference (2025)
for vibraphone trio
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PROGRAM NOTE
A Circle With No Circumference, for three vibraphones, was commissioned in 2025 by Jeremy Brunk. It is a direct relative of A Circle With Many Centers (composed in 2023, also for three vibraphones). A Circle With No Circumference reverses the compositional paradigm of its elder sibling, slowly expanding from an initial set of three pitches (F–E–A) to a six-note group (F–E–A–B–D–C) before gradually contracting back to three (B–D–C). Over the course of the work's 18 minutes, musical interactions are generated by a large-scale structure that comprises three strands of recurring pulses unfolding at slightly different speeds in a ratio of 9:10:11. Unlike A Circle With Many Centers, which frequently employs the use of a bass bow, A Circle With No Circumference is performed entirely with mallets. Sustain is produced by the pedals (depressed throughout) and quietly-struck echoes as each newly-introduced note is repeated either once or twice. The work’s title reflects an enigmatic scene in a short story by Haruki Murakami: an unnamed older man asks an unnamed younger protagonist to imagine “a circle with many centers but no circumference,” reassuring him that “your brain is made to think about difficult things, to help you get to a point where you understand something that you didn’t understand at first… this is the period when your brain and your heart form and solidify.”