Believe it or not, this is based on a true story. My mother-in-law was chased around her old farmhouse one night by a mouse. She escaped to another room and another room, only to be harrassed by the mouse each time. She eventually escaped to the horse trailer, where she spent the night. I have always wanted to turn this story into a flip book, in which grandma’s story is told, but when the reader flips the book over, the mouse’s side of the story is told. What did the mouse want?

ConTempus Quartet asked me to write a kid-friendly piece for string quartet, and I thought this would be the perfect place to tell the story. There have been numerous performances of this work: Lansing Symphony Orchestra, Michigan State University, and other organizations which have asked us back multiple times!

Our recording session was interrupted because of the pandemic, but we plan to finish recording and complete a book for publication (illustrations by my wife, soprano Emily Douglass) before summer begins.