for violin and piano
performed by Ilana Zaks, violin and Anthony Ratinov, piano

This is a piece about change, gradual and sudden, noticed and unnoticed.

March 2021, recorded in Sprague Hall at the Yale School of Music

The End of Seasons

Sea Glass Partita for voice and bassoon

Text by Eleni Katz,
Music by Lila Meretzky

Performed by Soomin Kim, soprano and Andy Sledge, bassoon at New Music New Haven at the Yale School of Music on 10/7/21

I. Whole
II. Crescent Moon
III. Translucent Electric Blue
IV. Waiting Canon
V. Again

Sea Glass Partita (for voice and bassoon)

eeanduh (for orchestra)

Performed December 9th, 2021 by the Yale Philharmonia and conductor Ryan Tani, Woolsey Hall, New Haven, CT

A procession of sights and sounds that walks, crawls, dances, and drags itself before disappearing into the distance.

Artwork by the composer
Recorded by YSM Media Production
Mastered by Jack Frerer

eeanduh (for orchestra)

Four Songs at Night (for high voice and sinfonietta)
Music by Lila Meretzky, text by Anna Margolin, translation by Shirley Kumove

I. We went through the days
II. This is the night
III. Night came into my house
IV. Die Goldene Pave (The Golden Peacock)

I. We went through the days as through storm- tossed gardens.
Blossoming, maturing; mastering the game of life and death.
Clouds, vastness and dreams were in our words.
Among stubborn trees in a rustling summer garden we fused into a single tree.

Evenings spread their deeply darkened blue, With the aching desire of winds and falling stars,
With shifting, caressing glow of fluttering leaves and grasses,
We wove ourselves into the wind, merged with the blueness
Like happy creatures and clever, playful gods.

II. This is the night, the sadness, the non- existence,
The treacherous glow of dreams.
Unhappy one, what will be?
Be cold, be clever, turn away from the stars, From child’s play with shadows, dew and fragrance,
Be still, be still,
And with all your congealing blood you will hear,
How the earth opens And the worm beckons.

III. Night came into my house
With the roar of stars, flood, wings,
With the glow of swamps, dirt roads, and mists.
I lay tense and miserable.
Trees came into my house,
Looming gigantic with roots and trunks And ancient deep glances from the leaves. 
And huge bizzare clouds
Came with thunder and laughter,
Like the dark heads of pagan gods.
And all of them swirled, hard and wild and bleak,
Clamoring: “you are, you are, you are”.

I lay tense and miserable.

IV. The golden peacock flew off and away, 
And night opened its golden eye.
My radiant one, sleep on.

Night opened its golden eye,
I became the fiddle and you the bow. 
My restless one, sleep on.

I became the fiddle and you the bow, 
Happiness arced fondly above us. 
My gentle one, sleep on.

Happiness arced fondly above us, 
Left us alone, flew off and away. 
My mournful one, sleep on.

Recorded Nov. 4 2021 at Sprague Hall, New Haven, CT.

Performed by C Han and Molly McGuire, voices, Danielle Maeng, flute, Marty Tung, bassoon, Kyle Thompson, horn, Yukiko Nakamura, percussion, Seho Young, piano, Gregory Lewis and Ilana Zaks, violins, Emily Rekrut-Pressey, viola, Sandra Haga, cello, Nicholas Hernandez, bass, Maura Tuffy, conductor.

Artwork by the composer.

Four Songs At Night

music for a dance

by Lila Meretzky
Performed by pianist Melvin Chen, Dec. 10 2021 in New Haven, CT.
Composed for choreographer/dancer/improviser Emily Coates (watch the dance here: https://youtu.be/HSAagCQ1dro)

Artwork by the composer.

music for a dance

Speaking in Static (for string quartet)

Written for and recorded by the Omer Quartet, recorded in Sprague Hall, New Haven, CT October 2020.

Speaking In Static

Two Triangles (2022)
for solo multi percussion
performed by Makana Medeiros on 4/21/22
music by Lila Meretzky

Two Triangles was commissioned by percussionist Sam Carullo, who is embarking on a project asking composers to write percussion pieces inspired by Medieval and Renaissance music. I used the Ars Nova era technique of isorhythm, a grounding rhythm that occurs throughout a piece. The core rhythm is a  long-short-short-long figure that occurs in many different instruments and at different speeds. I also wanted to capture the strange sense I got while researching Medieval art and architecture that I was looking at something truly alien and of another world. Captivated by the disproportion and fine line between funny and terrifying, I hoped to instill the piece with an uncanny energy.

Two Triangles

For Ellen Arkrbo (2022)

For Organ and Brass

Music by Lila Meretzky
Performed 4/10/22 in Woolsey Hall, New Haven, CT
Ethan Haman, Organ
Brass Players of the Yale Philharmonia and Yale Concert Band
Thomas Duffy, Director
Mixed by Jack Frerer

For Ellen Arkbro (2022)

To crave and to have (for string orchestra)

Performed by the fellows of the Next Festival of Emerging Artists and conductor Peter Askim. Recorded June 2022 at Skyline Studios in New York City.

To crave and to have (for string orchestra)

Quietism
for viola, cello, and percussion

Performed by Josh Henderson, Julia Henderson, and Clara Warnaar.

Written for the 2022 Walden School Faculty Commissioning Project, featuring Warp Trio in the world premiere performance.

Mastered by Alex Christie
Art by Lila

Quietism

Games (2023) for two trumpets and two trombones
I.  Tag
II. Putting on a play
III. Hot Potato

Joshua Bialkin and Anthony Barrington, trumpets, Addison Maye-Saxon, trombone, Declan Wilcox, bass trombone.

Games

All mute things speak today for soprano and double bass
Performed by Anika Kildegaard and Will Yager (LIGAMENT Duo)
May 2019, Cortona, Italy

All mute things speak today
by Anna Margolin

All mute things speak today
the blue murmuring of a wispy cloud falls like dew
lofty words from the great dreamers of old
rustle in the treetops
and fall on my heart
with every leaf and every star.
Can you hear it?
How the sand is quivering
under the lonely, slow tread of night?
Solemnly and grandly 
a rich chant peals forth
from the gray, shrouded stone.
And you, my dear, my dear,
you are silent.

All mute things speak today

Thomas Faulkner, percussion
Lila Meretzky, voice
Recorded by Continuous Motion Productions
May 2019 in Nashville, Tennessee

Don't look for me where birds sing

Composer of acoustic and electronic Music
lilameretzky.com for more music, video, visual art, scores, and teaching and collaboration inquiries

Lila Meretzky

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