Eterniday is Auerbach’s homage to W. A. Mozart, shaped by a remarkable story of destruction, memory, and artistic renewal. The original manuscript was lost in a devastating electrical fire in the composer’s New York studio, along with her Steinway concert grand and the apartment around it.

Rather than reconstructing what had been lost, Auerbach began again. The work changed character and scale: what had first been imagined for a fuller chamber orchestra became an intimate score for bass drum, celesta, string quintet and strings.

The music places the principal string players in a concerto-grosso-like relationship to the ensemble: sometimes integrated within the orchestral fabric, sometimes speaking with strongly personal voices.