“The Ambition of Ghosts” is a 20-30 minute double concerto for violin and viola, accompanied by string orchestra and multichannel electronics. This work will be composed by myself, David Bird, in collaboration with the NYC-based violin/viola duo andPlay and Wavefield Ensemble. Whispers convey a variety of cultural expressions and emotional sensations such as intimacy, fear, comfort, shame, and admonishment, recently popularized by the ASMR genre of YouTube videos, celebrating the static-like, or skin-tingling, sensations that whispering creates.“The Ambition of Ghosts” explores the variety of associations that whispering evokes, as well as the ambiguity and misidentification of whispered text, and will utilize a variety of miniature speakers distributed throughout the string orchestra, which will play back multi-track recordings of whispers.