“Pangrams” (2024) is a brief suite for string orchestra that I recently composed. The idea struck me that a series of miniatures based on the linguistic concept of the pangram – a sentence or verse containing all letters of a language’s alphabet – might yield some interesting results using musical cryptography. Each movement is a short musical cryptogram where the letters of the pangram are converted to musical notes. Containing all letters of the alphabet, the musical equivalent uses all twelve tones; this yielded some surprisingly tonal-sounding musical material to develop. Thus I wrote four movements, totalling about six minutes of music:

I. Sphinx of Black Quartz, Judge My Vow
II. Pack My Box with Five Dozen Liquor Jugs
III. The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog
IV. The Five Boxing Wizards Jump Quickly

The work divides the violin section into four parts, and features the principal players of the violin and cello sections in two of the four movements. It was named a finalist in the “Musica Per Archi” international composition competition, and was premiered by the KLK String Orchestra in Lviv, Ukraine on June 17, 2024.