There weren’t many musicians at Yale back in the day. As freshmen, the few of us found each other quickly and formed bonds that have lasted, on and off, for a lifetime. I wrote this piece to commemorate that bond, and three of us – James Baker, chair emeritus of the music department at Brown and my roommate for most of college, and Paul Green, already at eighteen a seasoned performer who upped my game every time we played together – helped bring it to life. We did a private showing of the piece at Yale, and it had its first public outing with the extraordinary Balázs Rumy, a spectacular and deeply soulful musician, finishing his Artist Diploma at Juilliard.

–Conrad Cummings