On Curiosity

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This piece is the second movement of my "Hades-K" string quartet, titled "On Curiosity." As I mentioned, I wrote this quartet on a research cruise in the south Pacific, as we were sampling in the Kermadec Trench. On multiple occassions, we collected animals that no human had ever seen before, and in some cases, nobody on board the ship was able to say definitively what the animal even was.

I and several other scientists shared a tiny laboratory, and in that crowded room, we were giddier than children on Christmas. Every time the door swung open and someone brought in the next specimen for dissection, something like an electric current pulsed through all of us. I was reminded of a quote from Albert Einstein: "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."