Silver (2020) 7:15'
For Chamber Orchestra
1,1,1,1 1,1, 0, 0 1 perc. strings
7:14 minutes
Commissioned by Minnesota Sinfonia. Video Performance by the Oberlin Conservatory Orchestra, Raphael Jiménez, conductor (April 2021). Performance by Simón Zerpa and the University of Iowa Orchestra.
Program Notes:
I selected the name of this piece before I had written any music. I have always loved the color silver. As a child, I loved drawing and painting and marveled at this particular color, because it was tricky to create and mix using standard colored pencils and paints. Silver is my attempt to capture this elusive hue in my music many years later.
The piece begins as a gentle barcarolle, a slow dance that mirrors the movement of a boat out at sea. A gentle, falling figure appears and it leads to a mournful melody in the trumpet. Different strands of materials attempt to mix with the gentle, rocking music, without much success at first. The dam breaks, and the middle section surges with pulsating energy that culminates on a crashing climax. The gentle music of the beginning comes back near the end, but it has now been changed with the pulses, disruptions and excitement of the middle section. The piece eventually comes to a mischievous ending that appears to bubble up to the surface after a long journey out at sea.