sleeping with a spoon under the pillow

for B-flat clarinet and piano

Duration: 5:30’

If you live where it snows occasionally, you might have taken part in some rites of passage growing up. As a child, when hoping for a snow day, we would remind all our friends to sleep with our pajamas on inside-out and to put a spoon under the pillow at night. The nostalgic, ethereal experience of waking up excited at 3am, peeking through the blinds, and seeing nothing but a sparkling white sheet of fresh-fallen snow lighting up the nighttime landscape, is what inspired this piece. The feelings that accompany this experience—opening the window and smelling the crisp, clean winter air; being too excited to fall back asleep; and dreaming of the next morning filled with winter paradise activities—follow me every time I see snow falling.

Sleeping with a Spoon Under the Pillow was composed for clarinetist Amelia Ainbinder.

Purchase the sheet music here!

Premiered by Amelia Ainbinder (clarinet) and Hyewon Kate Lim (piano) on November 18th, 2023 at Rutgers University