Earlier this year the composer wrote:

“Slow Dance was written in the summer of 1996 during a visit home to Portland, Oregon. I wanted to pay homage to some of the great, slow, mid-century jazz and pop ballads with this work, which is itself essentially a ballad. The title evokes an interesting array of associations to me: among them romance, intimacy, innocence, nostalgia, disillusionment and melancholy.

“My conception of the work has always been the image of an old chanteuse who hasn’t endured quite enough booze and hard living to forget a happier, more innocent time. The work begins in an eerie haze of nightclub residue, as if tired session players were stumbling to swing after hours in a very un-danceable 5/4 groove. This material gives way to a dreamlike and increasingly lyrical exchange between the cello and violin that gradually uncovers layers of memory and regret. A passionate, earnest waltz-like declaration emerges for one glorious statement, only to dissolve inevitably back into the opening material- the music of the present. This music drifts away, back to the corners of memory it came from, like dissipating cigarette smoke. Echoes of the familiar refrain “...and I only have eyes for you” haunt the beginning and end of the work.

“The work was written for and premiered by the Ahn Trio at the 1996 SoHo Arts Festival in New York City.”