gleaming, glowing, spheres and spectres          

Listen                                               

Look                                                

Instrumentation

Fl-2(2-pic), Ob-2

Cl-2(2-bcl), Bn-2(2-cbn) /

Hn-4, Tp-2, Tbn-2, Btbn, Tba / timp, 2-perc pno / strings

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Completion

October 2015

Brighton, MA

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Duration

11 mins

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Premiere

November 25th, 2015

Boston Conservatory Composer's Orchestra,

Eric Hewitt conductor.

About                                              

gleaming is an experiment in juggling various characters and how to present them. One of the core building blocks of the piece is an homage to Jean sibelius and his 4th Symphony. I've scattered his opening whole tone melody thoughout my piece, referencing it in part before each major transition. It functions as a signal for change. The second character is an homage to another favortie composer of mine, Witold Lutoslawski. an incessant and interrupting F#, constantly jumping into the middle of melodic phrases and disrupting the flow of time. This character serves as a type of antagonist. The last character is a continually rising low voice melody, first in the tuba and low strings fter the introduction. In each episode, the low voice continues to rise to the top of the orchestra until the next episode begins. These three elements work for and against each other as the setting changes and they are faced with new challenges. Patterns are made and patterns are broken. The piece begins very much where it begins, though the ingredients have shifted drastically.