Mise-en-scène
Violin and Viola
(2022)

Duration: 4 minutes 30 seconds

Premiered at the Five College New Music Festival

Premiere September 2022
Western MA

Composer’s Note

This short piece is an exercise in intonation and patience, written for two outstanding student musicians performing in the Five College New Music Festival in Amherst, MA .

My own undergraduate experience is punctuated by the sounds of my freshman year roommate—a violinist—playing with long, full bow gestures on a single note, and the rampant (and sometimes incessant!) repetition of passages containing a multitude of double stops. In brainstorming about what to write for these talented Five College student musicians, I found myself thinking back to those earliest college sound memories, wanting to capture those sounds and transform them from practical practicing to a more crafted, musical gesture. The title, Mise-en-scène, refers to the arrangement of a scene or stage for a play or film; the material is carefully placed and curated, but not in motion. The composition, then, is one of observational intent, with little dramatic motion; instead, it is meant to evoke the gentle movement of the eye across a painting or stage, taking it all in, calibrating to the environment as a precursor to the story itself.