The Location of Lines

Written in 2017, for Orchestra (8 minutes)

orchestra is 3.3.3.3-4.3.3.1 timp, perc. (x3), pno, hrp, strings divisi

My Master’s Thesis.

Here is the original program note:

“The Location of Lines was inspired by the results of the conceptual compositional techniques of painter Sol LeWitt (1928-2007). I was amazed at LeWitt's early conceptual experiments with all drawing that would become his legacy. In several of these pieces, LeWitt prescribed fragile and delicate pencil lines to create a grand, yet understated design that becomes integrated with the architecture of the space. In this way, I have attempted to expand out from a single monophonic line across the orchestra. This line is never stated singularly, but is self-reinforcing and unfolds into orchestra, creating a larger architecture. The soft, understated dynamics, the blurred articulations, and kaleidoscopic harmonic language that is developed by this melodic line is intended to parallel LeWitt's prescriptions in a sonic environment. A sonification of space, here relates to the scale of LeWitt's work; where in scale, visual art becomes a temporal experience itself.

The title of this piece is derived by a 1975 series of etchings by LeWitt of the same name.

This piece was partially written while I was artist in residence at Arts Letter & Numbers, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.”

I still stand by this note for the most part, but I think I completely missed the mark with LeWitt’s work. I just don’t think I got the point of the conceptual process and got hung up on something much more superficial and much more specific- perhaps I saw what I wanted to see and let that take my musical ideas on a journey. That’s fine too, but that’s not what I described above.  

This piece really opened the floodgates for wanting to write orchestral music. I grew up playing in orchestras, and as much as experimental music doesn’t leave a lot of opportunity to work with or write for orchestras, this piece sort of gave me more permission to explore the genre and I realized that it wasn’t something I needed to be afraid of.  The piece really reviled my desire to live in both worlds; to try and do the normal “composer thing” and dream of grand orchestral pieces, but still want to do weirdo noise music, and to learn that I could actually do both. There are probably hundreds of problems with this piece, but it was my first real exercise into the genre and started trends and patterns that I think still show up in a lot of my writing for large ensembles- I can think of a few things specifically that have come up in almost every single large ensemble piece I've written that started here. It was accumulation of a really important part of my life and help me establish more of a voice and technique.

It's also wild to me that I wrote this at the same time as my micro-opera “A Thought,” and the 14-minute-long piece for bass flute and percussion “A Face Behind” all at the same two residencies.  When did I have time to do that…