The Gate Illumined

ensemble 1.1.1.1+2 saxes, 1.1.1.0, trap set, keyboard, 2 sopranos, string quintet
written spring 2021
duration 10 minutes

Commissioned by the Albany Symphony for the ‘Dogs of Desire’
Winner of the 2022 Jessie S. Yee Memorial Commission

Newness was on my mind in late February 2021 when David Alan Miller asked me to write a piece for the Albany Symphony’s ‘Dogs of Desire.’ I had recently graduated from school, spring was around the corner, and slowly but surely, the world seemed to be inching toward some semblance of normalcy. It had been a long, dark winter, and there was a hesitant hope in the air even around me where I lived: some of Baltimore’s more enthusiastic cherry blossoms had begun to prematurely flower.

I did not want to write a simple ‘spring has sprung!’ piece, however - the harsh realities of the last year would have made such an approach disingenuous for myself. Instead, I was drawn toward the beauteous ambiguities of Tang dynasty poet Bai Juyi’s work. His poetry was filled with natural imagery of the seasons that he shaped into dark yet lyrical ruminations on life, death, and rebirth.

Fall - ‘...The wind that burns to ash then restores.
The air fills with embers
And you go with them.’

- excerpted from his poem, ‘草 (Grass)’

Winter - ‘Bloom, unbloomed - snow soon thaws (by the dawn)
midnight snow shrouds the night...’
- excerpted from his poem, ‘花非花 (Flower, no flower)’

Spring - ‘The gate illumined by
The sun brings the sweet taste of spring.’
- excerpted from his poem, ‘春眠 (Spring sleep)’

Relatively few of Bai’s poems seemed to concern the summer, and so The Gate Illumined is shaped around Bai Juyi’s preferred seasons. The music begins tentatively, opening with a brief flurry of motion that is quickly suspended. The gesture repeats, slowly unfolding into running scales and drifting harmonies as two singers trade phrases back and forth. The two are initially opposed - one sings of desolation, the other restoration. Gradually, the music begins to shed its equivocation as its pulse solidifies into running motion. A gathering sense of optimism swells through the ensemble as the singers find agreement. Ultimately, the piece ends the way it began, culminating in the opening gesture.

Click here for a perusal score.

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