Lightplay

ensemble fl., cl., pno., vln., vc.
written fall 2024
duration 14 minutes

Commissioned by Copland House, as part of their 2024 HARVEST Commission
Under performance exclusivity by the commissioning ensemble until March 18, 2027

In 2020, I had the wonderful fortune of meeting artist Mokha Laget at a residency. Her work instantly enthralled me with its exuberance, scale, and wit. Lightplay is the latest of two pieces that directly respond to Mokha’s art, and as it so happens, both of these works were generously commissioned and premiered by Music from Copland House.

I chose to approach Lightplay as something of a sequel to my first ‘Mokha-response’ piece, toying with many similar textures, techniques, and sounds on a broader scale. Where my previous piece was based on a static painting, however, Lightplay responds to an animation of hers.

As before, I wanted to find musical analogues and parallels to Mokha’s resplendent abstraction: brilliant pianistic runs evoke glimmering, neon-lit shapes; microtonally inflected chords imitate the blurred, shifting bokeh effect; obsessive cycles of harmony spiral along to the animation’s circular motion. This time, though, I sought to craft a kind of intermedial counterpoint between music and visuals as they move in and out of synchronization throughout. Sometimes, the music’s rate of change seems to closely match the visuals’; other times, they pull apart. The interaction between them lent a new dimension to the composition process, and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating this piece.

I owe much thanks to Michael Boriskin and Music from Copland House for their enduring support of my work. Their belief in my music was and still is a major encouragement to me, and I am grateful for all they do in recognizing composers today.