Gregory Miles Hoffman
composer
selected compositions
The title is derived from a line in the Iliad referring to Zeus, although the piece has nothing to do with Homer’s epic poem. Rather, I was drawn to this phrase as a metaphor for elusiveness, unpredictability, deviationism, digressiveness and deceptiveness. Our lives take a lot of twists and turns. Depending on your outlook, these zigzags are unwelcome diversions from your beeline, pleasant scenic meanderings, deliberate obfuscation, or aimless ramblings in search of your lost bread crumb trail. Along the way of twists and turns, life deals out a lot of fists and burns. We end up off the path and in the brambles. This is not what we had planned. Whether you believe that the mysterious sleight-of-hand of fate is responsible, or that our choices determine our circumstance, at some point we look around and wonder how we got there. We stare back at the jagged, convoluted path that has brought us to where we are, and marvel that we never would have guessed X. Then we turn again to the future, squinting into the fog and mist. And march into the void.
A Man of Twists and Turns
for string quartet [2008]
