Commissioned in 2019 by clarinetist, Kristen Mather de Andrade. The piece is best

described as a suite of four loosely-related movements. Though the movements share a common inspiration and some similar thematic material, each can easily live on its own or be combined in any order the performers wish. The suggested performance order is: North, East, South and West. This ordering is based on the development and pacing of musical events within the movements and the emotional arc created when played in full.

The inspiration for the piece was the music, song, dance and imagery from the African continent, and was drawn from my personal recordings, from hundreds of hours online and from my own past experience playing in a Ghanaian drum ensemble here in Seattle. To help organize both my inspiration and the piece, I broke Africa into four regions: North, South, East and West. Africa is a huge continent and even breaking it down into regions is painting with a very broad brush. But again, my aim was simply to be inspired, and stir my own spirit and imagination into creating a new piece

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