From the CD Transience:
Commissioned by Jerrold Meinwald; Featured on both Evocations and Transience CDs.
Nexus for flute and piano is a tribute to Bach, a happy piece expressing joyous gratitude and delight. It is in three movements, Prelude, Adagio, and Gigue, the Adagio leading into the final Gigue without break. The work begins with a quiet chord sequence decorated with lively figuration by the flute, the figuration quickly taken up by the piano. The central movement is a songful contrast to the outer movements; near its end a brief rhapsodic passage interrupts the gentle flow, which is resumed and resolved into a quiet chord. Its final chord lingers through the quiet beginning of the concluding Gigue in which the opening sequence becomes a single-line fugue subject, later presented up-side-down as is typical in Bach’s Gigues, leading to a lively end. Nexus is dedicated to memory of the late, eminent chemist, Jerrold Meinwald.