Written as an opener for Brahms’ great G major Viola Quintet, Holds Ghosts was premiered in Albuquerque, New Mexico on November 25th, 2012. I wrote at the time:

"I've always been extremely fond of the string quintets of Mozart and Brahms, and so when the idea came up for me to compose a work to accompany Brahms' great Quintet in G, I jumped at the opportunity. I also felt that I had more to say through the musical language I had been developing for Of Observation and Experience in 2010, and this felt like the perfect opportunity to continue working with those sounds. While the composition is not based on any extra musical narrative, I was preoccupied with how we build and maintain memories throughout our life, and the process of sometimes letting those memories fade, hence the title."

I must have been embarrassed at the time, but the piece was in fact based on an extramusical narrative, namely my inability to move past a relationship that, even though clearly unhealthy, continued to haunt me. The opening passage is a fairly ham-fisted depiction of the contrast in our personalities.