Deep Blues and Bright Whites

Written in 2019 for solo harp (12 minutes)

Original Program Note

Although with the traditional understanding of soloing, or understanding what a solo is, we might look to questions of virtuosity, or pieces for study. With this piece, I’d like to propose an alternative route. In many ways, I think of it as the act of being alone and all the beautiful things that that can mean. If you see or hear a good solo being performed, it’s as if we are witnessing a private or intimate space with the person play. It’s not always that they play to us, but that they are alone, and maybe we shouldn’t even be listening. To me, there’s a deeper structure in that; playing alone is this delicate but still empathetic navigation of individuality where we have time to reflect, explore, and wonder. I love how personal this is, and this piece is full of small personal references and memories of loved pieces.

Thoughts on the Piece

To-date, this is the last piece I titled with colors. I’ve never been sure if this is some sort of synesthetic thing, but even if I don’t title a piece after a color, I still have some color association with pieces or collections of pieces - I’m not really sure how or why the colors get paired with the pieces in my head, but this last Color Piece feels cool with glimmers of soft yet bright light. Something of a nocturne, but also something to be played in a dark, black box theater: something to listen to in your headphones with your eyes closed

This was the first piece of several written for or with harpist Kaitlin Miller in mind. UNT is blessed with an amazing harp studio, and Kaitlin was a student in my composition class, taking it as an elective my first year of my teaching fellowship at UNT. Kaitlin is a comrade of new music, and was always down for whatever crazy ideas I had- including my 9-hour A Timeshare. She taught me a lot about the instrument, and the best lesson was that harp is not a piano. 

I didn’t realize how difficult I would find writing for harp- thinking too much like a pianist; learning to spell chords for strings rather than pitches. It’s a great instrument and hopefully more harp will come along.