During a conversation in the spring of 2009 Katie McLin observed that she and husband/musical partner Andrew Campbell had performed works by all the composers on the Arizona State University faculty except me. I took her comment as a tacit invitation to create a new work. Both musicians play with dazzling passion and energy, and possess incredible facility and skill.
The listener senses an extraordinary, unspoken communication connecting the two as they shape each phrase. I realized as I began this new project that I was imagining Katie and Andrew playing each gesture as I wrote it, bringing together different, yet equal musical ideas to create an intricate musical texture. My hope is that Equal Partners, completed in July 2009, provides an exciting venue to highlight the beautiful dialogue that exists between the two.