When I began working on a trio for alto flute, clarinet, and cello, I happened to come across an interview in a 1962 issue of The New Yorker with Sara and Gerald Murphy, two upper-class Americans who moved to France as a young couple in the 1920s. They were among the hottest artistic circles in Paris, served as inspiration for Scott Fitzgerald's main characters in "Tender Is the Night", and invented sunbathing in the south of France. They later had three children, two of whom died young, prompting them to return to the U.S. and live a reclusive life. American writer Amanda Vaill portrayed the couple in her novel "Everybody Was So Young", which I've never read but whose title inspired me to write music based on the feeling it conveys for me. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that time goes on and on, that it can't be stopped, and that we humans are constantly changing, even if we aren’t able to perceive it at the moment. In "Everybody was so young" I want to express this feeling of transience and nostalgia that overcomes you when suddenly you realize that you have once again transitioned into a new version of yourself while looking at this other being that was once you.