The composer's response to the horrific events of the September 11 attack on the United States. The music attempts to express the agonizing emotions we felt that day: disbelief, anguish, outrage, anger, grief, lamentation. The harmonic vocabulary is dissonant and the thematic material is brief, angular, and disjunct. "America, the Beautiful" is briefly quoted, but distorted from the death and destruction. The composer requests that rather than applause, that all performances of this piece be followed by a minute of silence in memory of those who perished.

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