Dances and Dreamscapes (2021/3)

for Orchestra

If there is anything that I have learned about my process for writing music, it is that usually the paths my compositions elect to take do not reveal themselves until after I have already written a large portion of the piece. I certainly have heard of composers mentally conceiving of entire works before setting them down to paper (the name Mozart usually comes to mind), but my process has never been so clairvoyant as that; often my experience with composing is more akin to being led, blindfolded, down an unknown path. There are certainly familiar or comforting moments in this journey, as well as peril and uncertainty, but ultimately I am not in absolute control of my guide’s chosen path, or even my ultimate destination.

Such was the case in the writing of this work; having written the first bar (literally, only the first bar) early in the spring of 2021, I left the piece alone for several months, unsure of exactly what to do with it, where it would end up going, or what kind of world it would create. Then, in the early summer, I started writing, allowing the music to go where it wanted, changing style and texture rapidly between different sections. Ultimately, the piece became a study in contrasts, juxtaposing the serene with the stormy, the consonant with the dissonant, and the consistent with the unpredictable. I decided to name the work Dances and Dreamscapes, to illustrate this contrast; within the composition is both music to dance to and to dream to.

Duration: 10 minutes

Dances and Dreamscapes was completed in August of 2021, and revised in October of 2023.