view of the raton pass from the interstate

Program Note:

view of the raton pass from the interstate is reflective of the southward journey through Northern New Mexico's Raton Pass just off of the Colorado border. With scenery shifting from the lush greenery of the Colorado Rockies into a high desert burn scar, the Raton Pass experience is a poignant one; revealing from the alpine grandeur its roots in firey destruction, and from the bones of which rise new growth, bound with hopeful optimism decades later. I wrote view of the raton pass in April 2023 at the beginning of New Mexico's fire season. As the wildfires grow more intense with each passing year, as do the anxieties that come with having such infernal desctruction so close to my childhood home. Much of my music this past year has been reflective of these anxieties, as well as anger and disappointment at the growth of resource extraction industries in this very vulnerable place. Driving through the Raton Pass in December of 2022, however, I realized that I have been so caught up in the politics and worries about this year's fire season that I had neglected to mourn for the land affected by last year's Hermit's Peak Fire (the largest recorded wildfire in state history), parts of which had been important places to me growing up. view of the raton pass is, as well as a musical depiction of the drive through the Raton Pass, a personal meditation on the loss of landscape.