Yearnings for Home began when Claire Hebeisen and Tristan Latchford met in Baltimore for coffee in the wake of recording Tristan's fiendishly difficult piece, 'Straight Up'. By the end of the conversation, the commission was born. It grew drawing inspiration from Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's extraordinary poem of the same name.

The goal was initially to replicate the emotions evoked in the poem within the piece, but by January 2024, this had morphed into creating a novel musical narrative structure made up of frames, scenes, and acts that documented an entire life. To do this, Tristan and Claire pooled melodies that were important to each of them, weaving them together with three new ones that Tristan added.

'Yearnings for Home' is ultimately a concert that explores what becomes homely and familiar to us. The program reflects the titular piece: The first Violin Concerto was written when Tristan was 17 to reflect joy and happiness despite tinges of sorrow (the middle movement); the Libera Me (commissioned by Bryce Zimmerman) evokes a sense of contented freedom, in conscious contrast to its usual more sorrowful and tempestuous settings. Welcome on a journey where we explore what it truly means to be 'home'.