For me, every new piece of music has a post-compositional “cool down” period. Emotionally difficult works beget fun ones and vice-versa, and the cycle continues on and on in an endless circle of mental blockage and catharsis that usually results in a pattern of alternating agonizing and upbeat works that contradict each other ad infinitum. I actually love this; I get to express my pains and worries away, and then reflect on the brightness and joy that are in my life in the moment. In terms that I often hear in relation to mental health, one could argue that it’s a rotation of crisis and mindfulness, and I think that it serves as a reminder that nothing is permanent.

After I finished Broken Glass, something old came back to me, something that I had been slowly picking at for a while. During my great compositional drought of 2022 I spent hours on hours writing ideas and bits that went nowhere in particular and only finished one piece, a commission, that I didn’t come around on and actually like until the beginning of 2023. These bits were usually small, but as I revisited them I began to hear something new and uplifting. I took the largest of them, a 20-bar melody with some harmonic ideas and a brief introduction, and got to work. I tore it apart, built it with a stronger foundation, paved a path through the work and then expanded on it all, and when the work was done I was overjoyed. A piece, a new piece, was written, and it was upbeat and fun and satirical and oxymoronic all in one, and it was about my cats!

Thus begins this work, Bring Forth! the Feline Brigade, a witless march in quick march tempo that bridges the gap between my humor and more traditional forms to make something new out of something old. It is my wish to bring as much happiness to all who listen and play as I experienced during every second of writing it.

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