The Buffalo Bisoons!!! (Bassoon Section of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)

The Buffalo Bisoons!!! (Bassoon Section of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra)

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra bassoon section will perform a recital of arrangements by Doron Laznow and a world premiere. 

Performers:
Glenn Einschlag
Nayalya Rose Vrbsky
Doron Laznow

As If Being Could Become Nothing takes its point of departure from the existential triad of being, becoming, and nothingness. The piece begins in a state of being, wrestles through the process of becoming, and ultimately collapses into nothingness. Yet this trajectory is neither linear nor complete—it loops, stumbles, and circles back, mirroring the human condition: the restless striving for transformation, meaning, and permanence, always shadowed by the inevitability of limitation and loss.

At its core, this is a sonic meditation on free will and fate. Each voice in the trio attempts to assert agency—to evolve, to transcend—but finds itself drawn back, interrupted by forces it cannot fully escape. The music unfolds in gestures that aspire to change yet dissolve mid-phrase, that surge forward only to fracture or vanish. These disruptions are not failures, but reflections of a deeper truth: that freedom is real, but bounded—and that fate and mortality are not walls to be broken, but contours we are shaped by.

Death pervades the work—not as a final punctuation, but as a continuous undertone, a presence that shapes the phrasing, the silences, and the very structure of expression. Each musical idea, no matter how defiant, carries the imprint of its own disappearance. In this way, the myth of Sisyphus becomes a quiet companion: his eternal labor, absurd yet unrelenting, echoes in the trio’s cyclical motion.

Ali Can Puskulcu

Performers