all the lights are gathered in your eyes
for flute, clarinet, trombone, piano, percussion, violin, and contrabass
2016 | ca. 8 min
f.p.: June 2016, New York City; ensemble mise-en
Programme notes
all the lights are gathered in your eyes is a single movement work that moves back and forth between quick and slow passages. However, one’s sense of speed and motion is at times made ambiguous through additional activity working in contrast to the prevailing sense of pulse, or lack thereof. This ambiguity in motion is reflected by the inclusion of a spoken text (two lines each from Mallarmé, Eliot, and Teasdale, the latter from whom the title is taken) that evokes themes of light and time with a recurring image of eyes. In combination with subtle and equally ambiguous physical action from the players, this work evokes an elusive theatricality that pushes it beyond the conventions of instrumental concert music.
R. A. Baker
Ensemble Mise-en; Moon Young Ha, conductor
12 May 2017, UC Davis, California, USA