for orchestra

Composed May – July 2019

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One must be willing to take “leaps of faith”.  Some of the best decisions I’ve ever made must have seemed downright foolhardy at their outset.  But, skeptic that I am, trusting in blind faith feels irrational and unnatural.  An impending sense of doom almost always underlies the optimistic mindset I must adopt to take chances.  The feeling reminds me of the old joke about the optimist falling from a tall building, who called “So far so good!” as he passed by each story.  

This is how Says the Man Who Jumped Off the Empire State Building came to be.  It details the contradictory experiences of such a brazen risk-taker.  There are moments of exhilaration and determination, underscored by a fatalistic sense of dread.  At times, one gets the sense that, having been falling for so long without crashing to the ground, perhaps the man will not crash at all – perhaps he will miraculously land safely.  Far more likely, it’s just a really tall building.  

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A recording of Says the Man Who Jumped Off the Empire State Building, read by the Brevard Sinfonia in July 2019, is provided below.