Mosquito Touch

Mosquito Touch was written for lutenist Jonathan Stuchbery, starting the summer of 2018, when I joined the Cygnus Trio for their Lost Islands tour in Northern Ontario. The final portion of this tour involved some excellent dawdling & dillydallying in the Thousand Islands around our performance in Gananoque, which is where this piece began.

The piece begins with an improvised section of plucks, thumps, and pops made by muting the long diapason strings on the second neck of the instrument, followed by a tricky mish-mash of choreographed hand techniques, which eventually fall apart into a little tune. The instruction in the score is Sappy and Romantic, like a mid-2000s indie song.

Mosquito Touch was premiered in a virtual concert in 2020, and was recorded the same year by Jonathan. We collaborated with artist Alex McLeod on a music video:

The score is available for purchase at the Canadian Music Centre. If you’re a lutenist interested in performing it, I’d love to hear from you via my contact form.