Openness and closeness, sparsity and saturation, stability and instability, presence and absence. These opposing qualities contribute to the conception of this piece. As categories, they serve as anchors –points of departure, reference, or arrival– in the gradual sonic unfolding that takes place. The challenge of composing a piece with a rather static quality was particularly interesting to me. To focus on the “inner life” of a complex, sustained sound allowed me to think of new conceptions of sonic organization and its presentation over time. In this piece, I conceive of the individual instruments as elemental components of a meta-instrument: the instruments contribute to the creation of a combined sonority the individual components of which interact, interfere and collide with one another. This piece is a result of the feedback process of trials and experimentations with the members of the quartet. I’m enormously grateful for their time and considerate engagement during our workshops.