As Though Breathing Was Easy
In this piece I wanted to create a sense of instability. The tempo is always shifting, pushing and pulling. Sometimes the easy things aren’t quite so easy.
Dripped in Gold
for Piano
Dripped in Gold is part of an ongoing trend in my work that draws on pop culture and reinterprets it through my own experience and love of the western classical canon. This work began as a response to Arianna Grande’s song Imagine. I was initially drawn to the intimacy of the lyric “Me with no makeup, you in the bathtub, Bubbles and bubbly”. I took the overall shape and rhythm of the melody Arianna sings at this line and at times inserted into the piece, but it is recontextualized within my own harmonic language. Ultimately this piece is a love letter to my amazing partner with its title drawn from the pre-chorus of Imagine “Click, click, click and post, Dripped, dripped, dripped in gold, Quick, quick, quick, let’s go. Kiss me and take off your clothes.” This piece is not meant to resemble the song it is inspired by but is instead an honest and intimate response to the emotions it made me feel and the amazing companion it made me think of.
Premiered September 22, 2019 by Gloria Cheng
breaths that you take
for Piano
This piece treads new water for me because I wrote it for myself. breaths that you take is about having a moment where you just have to stop, close your eyes, and breathe. We all get overwhelmed sometimes and this piece was a way for me to just take a few minutes and step back from everything.
Preludes for Piano
The first volume of my preludes for piano was commissioned by Alex McDonald and is also dedicated to him. I first met Alex while taking a gap year between my undergraduate and graduate degrees. While studying piano with him he helped me to rediscover why I began pursuing music in the first place. I will always be grateful for the support he gave me during that year. These preludes outline flashes of experiences I have had in the years since meeting Alex. From moments of sadness, loneliness, and anger to hope and serenity these preludes try to tap in to real human experiences from my life. The title of each prelude comes from whatever touched me at the time of writing, whether that was a song lyric, a passage from a book, or an image from a tv show.