In composing Sun Grown: How We Call Home, I have been thinking about the idealization of “home.” I think of sayings like “home is where the heart is” which asserts that the “home” is not a place of permanence, but one that is ephemeral and experiential, while the motto commonly seen when adopting pets reads, “forever home,” indicating a finality to a fixed position (which is proximity to their owners). I have lived alone, in various cities throughout the Midwest, for more than a decade now, but I still call the place I grew up (and the house my parents still live in) home. I feel I am greatly lucky to still have both the physical landmark and the relationship with my family to call this place my home, but I often wrestle with a part of myself that feels less fortunate to have grown up in a rural midwestern area that isn’t always kind to people like me. Sun Grown, for me, is a musical question about ephemerality of the “home” and how we can return to a spot that is simultaneously joyous and bleak. My intention is to mix traditional and non-traditional modes of performance, aleatory, and compositional diversions to weave through these questions, and ultimately ruminate on what “home” means to me.
 
Sun Grown includes an Oboe solo and accompanying chords. These chords can be played on any sustaining instruments: Organ, Synthesizers, String Ensemble, Etc.