This feels like a cradle to grave journey, returning to the heartbeat.

beautiful piece! is classical music your forte?

You can feel the relief at the end.  Beautiful....

As usual, Robert, a fantastic masterpiece with awesome atmosphere and intense emotional sounds.  Great work!!

The sounds of heartbeats, children's' laughing voices and ITU sounds are intrinsic to and integrate/complement the strings so well.Compelling and often beautiful music and so very moving.

Duration: ca. 11'
Instrumentation: string orchestra and recording
World Premiere: American Modern Ensemble, Del Sol String Quartet, JACK Quartet and PubliQuartet, Delta David Gier, conductor, SubCulture, New York, NY, January 15, 2015

View Score: https://issuu.com/robertpaterson/docs/paterson_i_see_you__string_orch._ve

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B4565EIa_U&feature=emb_logo

Buy Sheet Music: http://www.billholabmusic.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=103_137&products_id=2435

Note: versions for string quartet and string quintet also available.

PROGRAM NOTE
I See You is inspired by a week I spent at my father's side in a hospital. Having never spent much time in hospitals, I was unaccustomed to hearing the myriad of sounds, particularly in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), where my father lay incapacitated, in critical condition. It was incredibly sad: I could see him, but because he was so sedated, he was barely aware I was even in the room with him. Despite this, there was something strangely soothing and almost musical about the constant pattern of beeps and noises emanating from the machines. To pass the time, I would imagine an orchestra playing, with the litany of noises as accompaniment.

I See You consists of three connected sections. The first section entitled Tranquillo is calm and soothing, almost like a lullaby, with long melodic lines. The second, entitled Sturn und drang (“storm and stress”) is more rhythmic and stressful, incorporating a cacophony of ICU sounds. The final section, entitled Return, is more like the first, perhaps a bit darker, but with rays of optimism toward the end. Throughout the entire work, I incorporate sounds one might hear in an ICU, manipulated and mixed with recordings of heartbeats, breathing and the sounds of children playing. The piece ends with the overlapping patterns of my own heartbeat, my father’s heartbeat, and my son’s heartbeat, and even my son's heartbeat when he was in my wife's womb, creating an intimate, multi-generational, rhythmic tapestry.

I See You (String Orchestra and Recording)

American composer Robert Paterson is a true New Yorker—born and bred in Buffalo, he lived in Rochester and Ithaca for over ten years, in New York City for over twenty years, and now lives in Saratoga Springs, near the Adirondacks. Paterson’s colorful music embraces a wide variety of themes, everything from goddesses and online dating to mathematics and the environment. His music is filled with emotion and fierce rhythmic energy, marked by elegance, wit, and meticulous craftsmanship. Named Composer of The Year by the Classical Recording Foundation at Carnegie Hall, Paterson is the winner of the Alfred I. DuPont Award, and his opera Three Way won the Grammy® under Best Classical Producer of the Year. His music is often a Best of the Year pick on National Public Radio. His orchestral tone poem, Dark Mountains, regularly airs on NPR’s Performance Today. Three Way premiered with Nashville Opera, then BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), and across the United States. Minnesota Orchestra, Louisville Orchestra, The Oratorio Society of New York, Buffalo Philharmonic, Albany Pro Musica, Albany Symphony, Musica Sacra, Austin Symphony, Vermont Symphony, and ensembles worldwide perform his works. Paterson gives masterclasses at the Curtis Institute of Music, New York University, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cleveland Institute of Music, and more. He is the Artistic Director and house composer for Mostly Modern Projects. Robert is a lifelong vegan and advocates for animals and the environment, celebrating the natural world with ground-breaking works such as his Triple Concerto, A New Eaarth, Listen, and I Go Among Trees.

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