Program Notes

Essay for String Orchestra examines registral and beat hierarchy in developing the primary theme of my Symphony No.3 in E Minor: Concert in Three Acts. Essay transitions between traditional registral hierarchy and its complete inversion while shifting from a strong sense of beat hierarchy to its near absence and back again.

I adapted Essay from the symphony’s third movement, originally composed for string quartet. My objective was to explore the interplay between consonance and dissonance in the original composition, re-orchestrating to take advantage of the string orchestra's wider range and broader palette of colors and textures. The revised orchestration accentuates the original work's chordal structures to examine how listeners may perceive intervals conventionally considered dissonant as consonant in context.

9 minutes | 2016