The term petrichor is defined as a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather. For a long while, I always looked forward to the first rain and this aroma that follows, never knowing that there was an actual term for the phenomena. In fact, it wasn’t until late 2023 (right before I began this piece) that it was brought up in conversation. Immediately, I felt that it could be an interesting title & concept for a piece 

The piece is through composed and set in two movements that meld into each other. The first movement is meant to represent the wind and overcast sky that occurs before the rain. The title, The wind, it murmurs, has two meanings, the first being the high pitched whistle tones that we hear with strong winds, and the implication that when the wind starts to pick up, it is almost as if it is verbally giving us a message of what is to come. This movement is filled with literal and figurative representations of the wind, including blowing air through the instrument to tremolo-esk figures that come from nothing and fade to nothing. 

The second movement, …and the rain tapping on my window, is meant to represent the petrichor itself; once the rain actually begins. My goal with this movement was to explore a crescendo from light sprinkles to a full storm. As this movement is based on the rain, the bed of staccato textures is representative of that, specifically, as the title states, rain tapping on a window. 

Petrichor was written for the Azure Saxophone Quartet (Max Marquis, Rob Mitchell, Ernesto Flores, and Nicholas Logan) with a premiere performance for the Nextet Concert Series at UNLV.