The Gnarled Root (2003)

full orchestra

8 min.

(revised 2007)

Think of a forest: not quite like the ones familiar here on the West Coast (BC, Canada), but perhaps something a little more surreal and enchanted.  This forest is home to the most beautiful as well as the most primitive forms of life, and much as we would like to believe that we’ve conquered our fears of the unknown, a solitary walk off the beaten path, at night, could easily prove us wrong…

This piece is an exploration of both the luminous and the darker colors of the orchestra– but is it possible that what lurks in the darkness here will reveal some of its secrets? Or will they remain intangible, dreamlike, locked beneath a grid of gnarled roots– an enigma?

• Winner of the Golden Key International Honor Society’s Performing Arts- Composition award, 2004

• Selected for reading by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, as part of Jean Coulthard Reading Sessions (conducted by Bramwell Tovey), at the Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver, 12 February, 2004.

• Revised (2007) version premiered by the West Coast Symphony Orchestra (Bujar Llapaj- conductor), 12 October, 2007.

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Sheet music is available through the Canadian Music Centre.