Performed by Elizabeth Kate-Hall on April 29, 2020 at Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory
Composed by Natsumi Osborn

on the fragility of time

Performed by Emily Hancock, Katia Waxman and Julia Klein on April 29, 2021 at Warner Concert Hall, Oberlin Conservatory
Composed by Natsumi Osborn

for three clarinets

Comnissioned by Tim Weiss and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble

Written for, and performed by, harpist Hannah Allen

Three Apparitions at Twilight (harp concerto)

Performed by the Village High School Orchestra. May 2015

Saudade

This piece was written in production of the original ballet "Before My Eyes" with choreographer Riley Horton at the Houston Ballet Academy. Exploring the process of “life review” as one approaches death, the piece begins by depicting the final moments of consciousness before delving into some of the most powerful and deep memories, watching images of life events flash 'before my eyes', and finally experiencing the life's last moments as death takes over.

Reminiscence

My appreciation for nature has grown immensely over the last year. Where I live in Houston, Texas, there is relatively little lush greenery, hills, flowers; however, spending this past month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has given me the opportunity to explore various sites of nature, whether it be in the local residential streets or taking a bus to the many historic parks. The forests here are stunning – I was surrounded by these lush and overgrown trees, beautiful golden sunlight peeking through leaves as the day wanes, and fireflies lighting up my surroundings like the night sky. I’ve silently walked for hours through such places and it’s just so beautiful, so simple yet incredible.
Being surrounded by nature, I have found myself in a situation similar to something defined in German as waldeninsamkeit: a sensation of solitude and innate connection when alone with nature. I wanted to portray this sense in Woodland Solitude; although it isn’t quite as complex as some of my other works, I wrote to satisfy a long-lasting urge for simplicity and tonality. With the surrounding nature bringing an everlasting sense of serenity, I felt compelled write something to do it justice.

Woodland Solitude

I have always been intrigued by the concept of dreams and how they seem to take one into a completely alternate, surreal realm. It’s strange, yet mystical and enthralling in its own way. I can’t find a word or phrase to precisely describe the image and feeling that I have so strongly etched in my mind. This dream world is almost secretive, hidden somewhere deep in our minds; thus “veiled expanse” hints at a magical otherworld that is hidden from our reality, only brought to us in the depths of our subconscious. Throughout this piece I explored the concept of facing an unfamiliar realm in a dream by incorporating melodies that sounded mystical at some points while haunting at others. I tried to depict the large range of sensations captured in dreams. In particular, I sought to convey those of magic and wonder, because to me, those are the most priceless our imagination has to offer.

Veiled Expanse

Remembrance of Things Past is a reflection on the way meaningful past experiences, especially bittersweet ones, impact our present. Such experiences leave behind a complexity of emotions that we process in various ways. However, with time we learn to accept that these sentiments will always linger. I wrote this piece in hopes of somehow depicting the journey to reach this point of understanding. 

Performed by Sam Barrett (cello) and XiaoYan Tan (piano)

Remembrance of Things Past (fantasy for cello and piano)

Read by the Oberlin College Choir in May 2018

Autumn Reflections

This piece was written as part of a 4-part suite entitled “Impressions of House and Home”, co-created with two other composers of Oberlin’s KOI collective. The suite explores various interpretations of home and how our distinct cultural upbringings influence our musical language. When thinking about what to write for a piece on “house and home”, my mind was immediately flooded with memories of various music from my childhood in Japan, where I grew up. I drew from these different music fragments to write Lineage Traces: the school song of the Japanese elementary school my mother and I attended, the melody of a folk tune, short songs that would play over public speakers, and finally, rhythms reminiscent of traditional Japanese festival dance. While the piece itself is not quite a narrative of my sentiments of home, it is a collage of – like the title suggests – traces of music both literally and figuratively from home.

Lineage Traces (for piano trio)

This piece was originally written for piano trio, as part of a composer-performer collaborative suite “Impressions of House and Home” that explores various interpretations of home and how our distinct cultural upbringings influence our musical language. When thinking about what to write for a piece on “house and home”, my mind was immediately flooded with memories of various music from my childhood in Japan. I drew from two main melodies: one, the school song of the Japanese elementary school my mother and I attended, and the other, the melody of a traditional holiday folk tune. I also used fragments of short songs that would play over public speakers down my street, and rhythms reminiscent of traditional Japanese festival dance. While the piece itself is not quite a narrative of my sentiments of home, it is a collage of – like the title suggests – traces of music both literally and figuratively from home.



The piano trio was written during a three-week residency, and while I had an incredible experience composing the piece during that time, I realized that I wanted to continue working on the piece. I felt that some of the musical ideas could translate better into a larger orchestration, and I had to also previously discard some sections that I was attached to because it was just not quite idiomatic for a piano trio instrumentation.  Thus, I expanded Lineage Traces for full orchestra.

Lineage Traces (excerpts; read by Oberlin Orchestra)

Performed by Jaclyn Hopping (soprano) and the Phlox Orchestra, led by Nan Washburn, on February 2nd 2020 at Finney Chapel, Oberlin Conservatory

TEXT
"The cold earth slept below"
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

The cold earth slept below;
Above the cold sky shone;
And all around,
With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;
The green grass was not seen;
The birds did rest
On the bare thorn’s breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o’er many a crack
Which the frost had made between.

Thine eyes glow’d in the glare
Of the moon’s dying light;
As a fen-fire’s beam
On a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,
And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,
That shook in the wind of night.

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
The wind made thy bosom chill;
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will.

The Sleeping Earth (for soprano and orchestra)

LEGACY., for SATB choir, was commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Choir to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the May 4th, 1970 shootings at Kent State University in Kent, OH. Based on the poem of the same name by Megan Neville-Jellen, LEGACY. seeks to both remember the violence and tragedy of the incident, as well as pay respect to those affected. The text draws moving imagery from the Pulitzer Prize-winning iconic photo of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of Kent State student Jeffrey Miller, and captures the way in which remnants of tragedy trickle down through generations; lingering for decades, never to be forgotten. In LEGACY., the musical setting shifts between dissonant chords which are then resolved in a more comforting, familiar manner to reflect the grit and emotional weight of the text.

Witten in sobering remembrance of the victims, and every individual whose lives have been touched by this violence.

Performed by the Cleveland Chamber Choir at the St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, Cleveland, OH on March 8, 2020.
​

LEGACY. (Cleveland Chamber Choir)

Natsumi Osborn (b.1999) is a Japanese-American composer from Tokyo, Japan. Finding her interest in composition at a young age, she has since written for film and ballet as well as concert music. Her works have been performed at various venues in the USA and Canada including the Houston Ballet Academy, the Society of Composers, Inc. Region conference, Carnegie Mellon University, and the Houston Public Media Classical Radio. She was named Winner of the 2017 American Composer’s Forum NextNotes Awards and of the WCSMS 2017 Promising Young Composer’s Competition. She also received an Honorable Mention from the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer’s Awards and the 1st Prize from the 2017 Carson Thomas Miller Texas Emerging Composers Competition. Previously a student of Daniel Knaggs and Benjamin Krause at Rice University, Natsumi now studies composition at Oberlin Conservatory under Stephen Hartke, Elizabeth Ogonek, and Jesse Jones.

Natsumi Osborn

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