Joelle Wallach's In a Dark Time (the eye begins to see) for horn and piano or chamber orchestra, was commissioned by the International Women's Brass Conference for its opening concert of 2006. It explores the lyrical and expressive aspects of the Horn, and was premiered there by Laurel Bennert Ohlson, Associate Principle Horn of the National Symphony Orchestra. Like the Theodore Roethke poem form which the title is taken, the music explores the revealing, redemptive power of times of psychic dark. All three movements can be played in sequence or each movement can stand alone as its own brief lyrical statement.