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I. The City
II. The Thread
III. The Dream
Premiere performance on February 25th, 2017 by the Mutationem Winds
Anya Pogorelova, conductor
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Program Notes
We begin AAA in The City, which welcomes us with a triumphant burst of sonic energy. The City is going at a rapid speed, and its movement becomes more and more palpable with each bright, driving note. People are walking, talking, working, and making their dreams come true beneath the glittering lights of the skyscrapers and billboards. We swing along through patterns of eighth note rhythms, each as fast paced as the urban environment around us. The City sounds larger than life, an idea that fills us with hope and promise as we slide up and down slick glissandos. The beat is pulsing, as if we are dancing to the heartbeat of the city itself. And indeed, it is hard to not feel like the city is, well, alive—and in this moment, we feel the same.
The Thread begins on a calmer note, slowly bringing us down to a gentler tempo and mood. Solemn piano keys invite us to pause for a moment and to reflect on the blazing path we have left behind us. Where are we heading? What lies ahead? We have been moving so quickly and creating so much drastic change, yet have never stopped to think about any of the consequences. We realize that change is like a thin thread that stretches forwards and backwards through time; a thread that seems to wobble and fray with our excessive energy. And so this pause is necessary, to ensure that the pressure we place on this thread doesn’t cause it to snap.
But The Dream quickly rips us out of the quiet thread of thought into roaring chaos. Clashing horns and drums come out of nowhere and struggle to reach a melodic consensus. As the music begins to slow and congeal, we return to a similar pattern of eighth notes from The City. This time, it feels sadder—a corruption of the exciting energy we once felt so deeply. It feels as if we are a moth drawn to a light, only to realize upon reaching it that it was far too bright for us to bear. What was once exciting has becoming terrifying; what was once coyly mysterious is now empty and grotesque. Everything begins to line up a little too well, as if converging into a vanishing point of conscience and consequence. The Dream is only a dream when bathed in the bright glow of a city from afar—once we hit the ground and begin to see the it in all of its unsettling detail, it suddenly becomes a vicious nightmare.
Program Notes by Sarah Michelson