• Artist: Kevin Ernste
• Title: Birches
• Year: 2001
• Length: 0:43 minutes (1.38 MB)
• Format: Stereo 44kHz 256Kbps (CBR)

Birches for viola and electronic sounds was written as a response to the poem of the same title by the great American poet, Robert Frost. My intent was not to "set" the poem, but rather to explore its inner workings -- to re-imagine its parentheticals, present in Frost's vicarious vision of a boy, a scene of birches, and the truth of the matter versus the 'truth' as revealed in the confession of an old man looking back.

Birches is dedicated to my father and was composed for John Graham.

The piece has been performed dozens of times by numerous performers, most recently by Graham himself on his May 2004 China tour (Beijing, Wuhan, Xiamen, Hing Kong), at the Weisman Art Museum in Minnesota, and at the Aspen Summer Music Festival.