Kernel is a fifteen-minute work for wind ensemble. Its unifying strands of rhythm, melody, and harmony are spun out of simple four-note tone clusters which undergo changes in contour, intervallic inversion, register, texture, and harmonic environment. These four notes make up the "kernel" of the work, a word used by Breton to refer to the indestructible element of darkness prior to all creative invention, as well as a term used in computer science to refer to the crucial element of a system that, if it should fail, does so loudly.