Orchestration
violin, viola, cello, and piano

Commissioned by
.abeceda Institute

Program Notes
This piece draws inspiration from both a thought experiment and a long-running YouTube channel. Smosh,

created in 2005 by Ian Hecox and Anthony Padilla, became popular through scripted sketches starring the two. Over time, the channel's output shifted as new creative voices emerged in the organization. Many of these figures had professional backgrounds in comedy and improvisation, so the channel's videos evolved to emphasize their collective strengths at the expense of Ian and Anthony's on-screen presence. These changes call to mind the Ship of Theseus, a thought experiment that asks whether a ship remains the same after all of its parts have been replaced. If the content, talent, and audience of Smosh have changed, can it still be considered the same channel?
 

These questions of transformation have shaped the musical language of this composition. The opening section juxtaposes arpeggiated piano passages with melodic fragments in the strings, evoking the spontaneity associated with improv. comedy. In the second section, the quartet coalesces into a unitary structure and the writing emphasizes sustained chords that reflect the top-down vision within Smosh's older sketch work. The reappearance and collision of these ideas in later sections of the piece represents the whiplash of time jumps within a body of work that appears singular, but whose creative philosophies and audiences are fractured.