Beauty despite daylight (2022)
Winner of the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2022 Classical Evolve Composer Competition
Selected for the Pacific Chamber Orchestra’s 2022 Dream American Emerging Composer Workshop
Finalist for the 2023 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards
Honorable Mention in the 2024 Missouri Composers Project
written for the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra as part of its 2022 Classical Evolve Composer Competition
1.1.1.1 - 1.1.1.0 - timp.perc(2) - harp - strings (4.3.3.2.1 minimum)
Duration: 9 minutes
Performances:
Premiere by the Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Stilian Kirov, Music Director, at the Marg Kallemeyn Theatre on the campus of Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL, on September 22, 2022.
Pacific Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Lawrence Kohl, at the Orinda Library Auditorium, Orinda, CA, on October 30, 2022.
Columbia Civic Orchestra, conducted by Stefan Freund, at the Broadway Christian Church, Columbia, MO, on March 10, 2024.
Program Note:
Like many people during the pandemic, I have spent much of the last three years alone and isolated from my friends and family. Weekend outings with my family were replaced with online activities like playing Mario Kart with my sister and watching NBA games with my brother. Although these were things we had previously done together in person, there was a newfound significance that acted as a sort of therapy for me. In retrospect, these were the moments that prevented me from falling apart. Beauty despite daylight examines these themes of home and kinship, beginning with a fragile, glimmering texture. This piece draws from ru con—traditional Vietnamese lullabies—which acts as the foundation for this work. The untitled song I quote is interwoven throughout the entire piece, first fragmented into several motifs and then presented in its full form. The title of this work is after a line from Ocean Vuong’s poem “On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.”