The title of Disbelief & Suspensions (2008) comes from the concept of “suspension of disbelief”—that is, the willingness to suspend judgment/skepticism while experiencing a work of art in order to temporarily experience that art as reality. The first movement, called “Disbelief,” is frantic, fractured, and furiously cynical.

The four subsequent movements gradually transform that cynicism into the calmer, peaceful acceptance of the final movement (“Suspension 4”), in which all four instruments are heard together for the first time. 

 

Disbelief & Suspensions was premiered by members of the Left Bank Concert Society: Loren Kitt, David Salness, Evelyn Elsing, and Santiago Rodriguez.