Composer’s note: I wrote Remembrance of Things Present to fill a spot on a program of new chamber music in 2006. It seemed to me that there was a need for something light on a concert that otherwise featured music weighty in tone or conception. A dance, perhaps, or a lullaby. But somehow the unceasing daily news of local and global violence and its aftermath kept interrupting my thoughts, and wove its way into the music. There are still fragments of song and dance, but they are often framed or interrupted by responses to gritty reality.