For years, I’ve been chasing the idea of being able to perfectly capture the emotions of grief into music. For years, I’ve thought maybe once I completed a masterpiece, my magnum opus, I might begin to heal. The truth? It’s an impossible endeavor. I may never write a piece to top it all, but I will continue to write comfortably knowing I try everyday to be my best.
"Winter in July” is another work of mine dedicated to my dad, Dan Martin, who passed away abruptly when I was seventeen. It is slow, meditative, and is meant to make the audience take a pause from their own lives and just reflect, imagine, or remember. The entirety of the piece is mimicking not only the waves of grief, but the growth with grief. In this piece, the timbre shifts around constantly, moving from instrument to instrument or section to section. Solo instruments speak over the enveloping sustained sound occasionally. Eventually, the whole ensemble builds together to a focal point of the piece, the only time everyone is playing together. The full ensemble abruptly ends in silence, until the solo lines begin again, this time overlapping.
I am not the same person I was when he first passed, but my grief remains. I’ve grown with my grief, not from it.
The "Just This Once" Wind Ensemble peforms Winter in July on November 16th, 2025, at Broyhill Music Center