Beyond Color There is Light ACE - for pierrot sextet (2025)

Beyond Color There Is Light draws on my experience at the massive Rothko Retrospective at the Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris in January 2024.  It was truly surreal to see 115 Rothkos in a single space and there was a beautiful, enigmatic, and luminous aura among the entire space. Seeing so many of these paintings, and seeing them so closely, one starts to realize how one-sided it is to characterize these paintings as still or suspended; these are incredibly active paintings filled with magnitude of tiny details in color, brushstrokes, and shapes that add so much to the vibrancy of the work. These micro-activities also helped create the sense of inner illumination that Rothko sought to create from within the paintings themselves. In Beyond Color There is Light, I try to capture this duality of stillness and create a sense of luminosity through the orchestrational and harmonic worlds. Through passages of driving melodic lines and rich harmonic webs, a passage of dreamy, floating, and rustling chords with a lyrical cello solo, and an animated, mixed-meter passage, the experience of this piece is as if we notice all of the tiny details flash before our eyes, but we still maintain this shimmering and suspended world in our presence. Beyond Color There Is Light was written with appreciation and admiration for the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and Tim Weiss. 

Tim Weiss, conductor
Antonina Styczen, flute
Ian McEdwards, clarinet
Laura Gamboa, violin
Miles Reed, cello
Seth Schultheis, piano
Xin Yi Chong, percussion

Beyond Color There Is Light - for pierrot sextet

Justin Weiss is a composer and conductor whose music explores relationships between the visual arts and music through the intersection of lyricism, textural play, and transformational forms. Justin’s music has been recognized with a Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Prix Langage Musical from Les Écoles d’Art Américaines de Fontainebleau, the Walter E. Aschaffenburg, and awards and recognitions from institutions such as ASCAP, Society of Composers, Inc., and The American Prize, Tribeca New Music, and YoungArts. 

Justin’s music has been performed internationally by ensembles including Quatuor Diotima, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, the Grossman Ensemble, TAK Ensemble, Ekmeles Vocal Ensemble, Sandbox Percussion Quartet, and ~Nois Saxophone Quartet. Justin is the conductor of the University of Chicago New Music Ensemble, a co-founder and conductor of the new ensemble, Mycelium New Music, and has premiered dozens of pieces internationally. Justin studied at Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the Royal Academy of Music in London, and is a PhD Fellow at the University of Chicago where he studies with Augusta Read Thomas.

Beyond Color There Is Light - for pierrot sextet

Justin Weiss - Composer