TESLA’S LETTERS deals in part with matters of cultural identity in the former Yugoslavia in 1997. It also confronts the conflict that tore that country apart.  My initial idea for this score was to do something rooted in the folk music of the region.  It interested me for both its acoustic sound and its harmonic language.  But at some point I realized I was being esoteric and working against a play that, to the audience, unfolds like a mystery with a dark secret at its center and not a lecture in ethnomusicology.

Collette Pollard’s set drawings showed me what I needed to do instead.  Her set featured a repeating geometric pattern that covered the entire floor of the stage.  It inspired me to pursue a repeating pattern in the music as well.  In addition, the presence of Tesla in the play’s title and as the subject that drives the investigation of the main character called for something that sounded electric.