"Branching" was written for the
Omnibus Ensemble's workshop "Omnibus Laboratorium: Peabody - Tashkent." One of the themes of the workshop was using some traditional Uzbek instruments — a nay (a type of flute), a tanbur (a plucked string instrument), and a chang (a hammered string instrument), along with Western instruments. Another theme incorporating traditional Maqom ornaments, many of which are microtonal — the Omnibus Ensemble had developed a system to show these in Western notation.
I figured that most people, given a microtonal prompt, would write a slow piece. So I wrote a fast one for contrast.