Peaberry (2024) 8'
For wind octet.
Commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Self-published (Morningside Press, ASCAP).
Peaberry is a piece of music about coffee -- or, better said, my relationship to coffee. Coffee aficionados will know that coffee beans are not actually beans at all. They're seeds, and they start their lives inside a coffee cherry. Typically, two seeds grow in each cherry, giving coffee beans their characteristic flat-sided shape. A "peaberry" is the rare result when only one seed grows inside a coffee cherry. Because they're scarce and tasty, peaberries are a prized commodity in the specialty coffee world.
I started home-brewing coffee during the pandemic. I've since gone all the way down the rabbit hole, becoming enthusiastic enough about each cup to seek out the subtle differences between peaberry coffee and a normal cup of joe. Along the way, it's become clear that my routine would be unfathomable without a jolt of java – a day-defining dependency that I haven't fully come to terms with.
I know I'm not alone. Bach's coffee cantata, which must be the most famous coffee piece in the Western classical tradition, depicts a young woman's coffee habit with some combination of playfulness and moralizing concern. Here I am, three hundred years later, retracing familiar ground.
This music invokes the energy of a few too many great cups of coffee. Alongside the jolts and jitters, it takes time to slow down and linger in a gentle, wistful frame of mind – the kind of mood coffee can be especially good at tamping down. Still, the charm of an especially tasty cup of peaberry is always chattering just around the corner.
Listen: