Jenni Brandon - The Woman with the Unfathomable Eyes for Narrator, Flute, Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano

From the composer: "Mystery. Intrigue. Murder… Welcome to the gritty world of a 1940s detective, where shadows run long and motives run deep. A woman with unfathomable eyes walks into his office. Her sister has been kidnapped. Her husband? Gone—along with the ransom money. The detective takes the case, drawn in by her beauty and tangled in her lies. As he chases the husband and the cash from the streets of Southern California to the dust and danger of Baja, Mexico, the truth unspools like smoke from a cigarette—and by the time he uncovers her real motives, it might be too late. Inspired by the hardboiled fiction of Raymond Chandler and his iconic detective Philip Marlowe, I envisioned a piece for narrator and ensemble that would immerse listeners in this noir world. I turned to Timothy Decker—acclaimed author and illustrator of The Letter Home, Run Far, Run Fast, and For Liberty—to craft an original story in that same gritty style."