Night Sky (2025) (11 min.)

Instrumentation: 2 violins, piano

Program Note

Night Sky is an exploration of musical imagery in four movements, with each movement representing a different aspect of the night sky. 

I. The Stars - This movement contains much stillness and repetition in the piano, corresponding to how the stars are perceived to not move. However, its natural beauty shines in soaring melodies. Twinkling is represented by repeated notes in tuplets, which are independent rhythmically.

II. The Planets - The planets, perceived to be still from our perspective at any given moment, constantly move in orbits of differing speeds. These different speeds are represented by the violin glissandi slightly varying their durations, as well as several instances of rhythmically unstable melodies on top of each other. The planets eventually align when the violins are in the same rhythm.

III. Meteor Shower - In my childhood, I would always lie down in my backyard during meteor showers. The randomness of visible meteors is represented by the inconsistent pizzicato ostinato, and the occasional falling passage. A waltz-like melodic segment represents lying down to watch the meteor shower.

IV. Aurora - The aurora is almost ethereal, painting the sky with colors. This feeling is represented in a harmonic-dominated movement, with many cases of double stop harmonics and similar techniques to create a light tone. A free-sounding melody accompanies the harmonics and is eventually passed onto the violins before quietness prevails.

  1. The Stars

  2. The Planets

  3. Meteor Shower

  4. Aurora