Kismet

for Andrew Gekoskie and the Harmony Honors Invitational

premiered April 28, 2026, Carnegie Hall (NYC, NY)

Kismet (from the Arabic word qismah (قسمة), meaning “portion,” “lot,” or “that which is apportioned”) came to the English language from Turkish, where it signified fate or destiny. The concept of kismet is closely related to qadar in Islamic philosophy, which describes the interplay between divine decree and human agency. This tension between inevitability and choice has persisted across philosophical traditions, from Stoic conceptions of fate as a rational cosmic order to modern inquiries into causality and contingency.

Kismet unfolds as a network of musical contingencies. Materials recur, mutate, and intersect, guided by an unseen logic. At times, events feel inevitable, at others, precarious and random. The listener is invited to inhabit this ambiguity: to hear structure as both emergent and preordained. Kismet suggests that what we perceive as destiny may instead be something constructed by circumstance.

This work is written for my father, Andrew Gekoskie, and the Harmony Honors Invitational.