Sunrise

Baritone, flute, harp, piano, viola
6 minutes
2025

This chamber work is the first song in a work-in-progress musical. The show’s premise includes two friends stumble into an unmapped Italian town where time passes strangely and villagers speak in riddles.

Drawing from Italian folklore, and musicals such as Brigadoon. Using text by poet Caleb Horner, this piece follows a villager, waking up with his town, reflecting on its history, and where he fits into his town’s future. Featuring a recit-style, stream-of-consciousness voice part, this piece’s accompaniment instrumental figures are amorphous and feature delicate timbres. Soft sounds that can not be heard in dense textures, create ethereal, magical, moods, evoking the mysterious town waking up at sunrise. The viola middle strings are tuned down from a G to an F and D to C, allowing the viola to play an F major chord all with open strings, and allow for maximum resonance in the harmonic areas of the piece. The piece focuses on resonating pitches F, A, C and E, to maximize colouristic harmony illustrating a sunrise.