Musique vocale et instrument(s) (1 voix soliste et ensemble jusqu'à 9 instruments)

	
As its title implies, a characteristic of this composition is the irregular return of material. Specific gestural and harmonic elements can be heard cycling through the work and unifying disparate musical sections through their reappearance. Their repetition, however, is rarely exact; certain features of the returning music are reconfigured. Rather than recurring periodically, the reiterations occur at uneven intervals, at times overlapping, other times embedded within one another. This compositional strategy is the premise for the work's formal design, which distributes material in complex and unpredictable loops.
Tangled Loops was commissioned by Taimur Sullivan, to whom it is dedicated. I am grateful to the MacDowell Colony for granting me the opportunity to compose a significant portion of this work during a residency there in June, 1996.
Jason Eckardt.