D a v i d   V e s s

Growing up in the mountains of Western North Carolina, the forest was a place of endless discovery, full of imagined stories, quiet joys, and the particular kind of wonder that only comes from wandering somewhere wild and strange. That spirit has animated much of my music, and Forest Music may be its most direct expression. The piece draws its material from incidental music I wrote in the summer of 2021 for a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream with Applause Academy in Taunton, Massachusetts, commissioned by my friend Andy LeBlanc. The original score was conceived as orchestral mockups for dance sequences, the Mechanicals, Puck, and the fairy world, but much of the music lingered in my imagination long after the production closed. Forest Music is a concert work fashioned from the music I wrote for Puck: capricious, driven, and not entirely trustworthy. The opening is a tempestuous scamper through the woods that stumbles upon a mysterious horn solo over furious woodwind arpeggios. The ensemble finds its footing gradually, passing through a series of melodic gestures, some that take root and grow, and others that vanish before they can be caught. The oboe and clarinet strike up a strange duet, which gives way to a bravura melody introduced almost tentatively, as though the middle of the score had been torn away and the surrounding parts lost to the forest floor. The melody grows and glows, eventually seized by the horn in full grandeur, before a burning accelerando sweeps us back into the opening's wild energy. The horn's mysterious theme returns and extends itself toward a finale of strong, unpredictable hits — then bursts into a final cadence and disappears, as if nothing had happened at all.