In a Moss Garden was inspired by Saihō-ji, a Rinzai Zen Buddhist temple located in Kyoto, Japan famed for its garden that features over 120 types of moss. It reflects an absorption of traditional Japanese performance styles, gestural vocabulary, and cultural concepts of musical time, space and timbral nuances re-contextualized in a modern chamber music setting. The cadenzas that appear in the work for each instrument of the trio represent three small islands (Asahi Island, Yūhi Island, and Kiri Island) found within the central Golden Pond of Saihō-ji. In this work, I seek to provide the performers with a ruminative and expansive palette from which to express themselves, evoking a musical soundscape of understated and timeless expression.