When I sat down to write Eating Flowers I felt that I was responding to the energies of orchestral music whose colors I find irresistible: Ravel, Rimsky-Korsakov, Debussy, and Messiaen particularly. My piece does not quote or explicitly refer to this music, but the energy and color was an influence. Because of the indirect relationship this new piece formed to this music I found so colorful and appealing, the title captures the sense of having tasted the delicious and delicate colors of my favorite orchestral music, which nourished my own creative process after having been digested. Hannah Lash
