Winter Always Turns To ....
Commissioned and premiered by the Plattsburgh State Sinfonia, Plattsburgh NY
score: Download the score (PDF)
notes:
Winter always turns to … draws its name from a letter by the 13th-century Buddhist monk Nichiren Daishonin, written to a woman in the depths of grief. He reminds her that just as the seasons move forward, no winter remains forever: the frost must eventually yield to spring. “Never,” he writes, “has anyone seen winter turn back to autumn.”
This work lingers in that suspended moment—when hardship feels endless, when the cold refuses to lift, when we believe ourselves fixed in shadow. The omission of “spring” from the title leaves space for doubt, echoing the uncertainty of those times. And yet, embedded in the music is the quiet assurance of transformation: that within the very texture of winter lies the promise of renewal.
Like Nichiren’s words, the piece invites us to hear difficulty not as a permanent state, but as a turning: toward warmth, toward light, toward spring.