2024
6′ 40”
Program Notes
Watercolor Lense is a work for solo piano that depicts the process of creating a watercolor painting. The resonance of the piano is used to create a sense of blurring reminiscent of pooling paint, allowing shapes to maneuver and transform as the come in and out of focus in the painting’s growing complexity.
The work begins with pins of sound, like droplets of paint dripping onto a wet canvas and spreading across the empty paper. This transforms into smooth brushstrokes, ill-defined but vibrant in color, growing more bold. But strokes turn to smears, bursts of color starting to splatter as the artist grows frustrated. Once elegant colors now bleed and blend in unsavory ways, and attempts revert these changes fail, causing the artist to crumple the paper and throw it in the wastepaper bin. Cathartic, the artist begins anew in the same meditative manner, letting each drop of paint fall upon a fresh canvas.
This piece was commissioned by pianist Francesco Granata, who will premiere the work in the fall of 2024.