The piano trio, with its classical connotation, is something I sought to escape – through the research of a common and homogeneous timbre – and to play with, by referencing the expected interactions between piano and soloists.
If on one hand, to underscore on the typewriter indicates the laborious backing-up of the carriage and re-typing of the lower-case line over a previously written text, on the other hand in computer programming the same sign, known as “break character”, has come to replace the blank space. Thus the piece’s title references two aspects of the composition: it’s obsessional reiteration of key musical ideas as well as its research of zones of neutrality.
Underscore was commissioned by the Tzlil Meudcan festival in Tel Aviv where it was premiered on July 2015 by Ensemble Interface.