Pain follows a narrative of the composer’s wife who was in an accident involving a drunk motorcyclist at the age of six. The music chronicles a girl’s journey and struggle through chronic pain, addiction and overcoming physical and mental barriers in five sections: Crash, Hospital, Pills, Cold Turkey and Beginning. The piece was composed using techniques musique concrete, as well as various self-constructed synthesizers.

PAIN

Lighght is a work composed for chamber choir. It is based off the minimalist poem of the same title by poet Aram Saroyan. The poem is a single word place in the middle of a white, blank page with the added letter pair –gh inserted into the word “light.” The added letters do nothing to changing the pronunciation of the word, but mean to signify the weightlessness and intangibility of light. In this, the composition means to evoke the same feeling using variable time intervals, an emphasis on music timbre and a single word text.

lighght

Teal’s composition was completed on the two year anniversary of the death of Morgan Brantley, a childhood friend to the composer’s wife. Morgan was a 17 year-old high school junior diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. The awareness color for Ovarian Cancer is teal, giving this composition its name.  The piece revolves around the emotion of grief and pain that comes with the loss of someone dear. The structure of the work explores the full range of the flute, beginning with a low somber melody and reaching a piercing climax towards the end.

Drew Owens

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