Starry Night (2015)

​

For Chamber Orchestra (1.0.1.0 / 0.0.0.0 / 2perc / Pno / Hp / Strings)

Duration: 10'00"

Score and Parts are available for purchase

​

Commissioned by conductor Kyle Ritenauer

​

​

​

Program Notes: Based off the iconic painting by Vincent Van Gogh, Starry Night invokes a realm in between this and another world. With its strong modal melody and powerful use of extended effects from all of the instruments, it invokes a provocative look into the mind of Van Gogh and artists like him. While Van Gogh was completing the paintings of the landscape outside his window, he spent time in an asylum that he himself asked to be in while he contemplated his eventual suicide. The paintings that he created late in his life show a beautiful but distorted world. It can be made clear that while he was a part of this world, he longed to escape it and reality. His paintings, while of real objects and scenes, are distorted and show us what the world may look like from somebody outside of our existence looking in. This was Van Gogh’s escape. To see the beauty in a distorted world. This piece, Starry Night, aims to capture that same feeling as the beautiful melody that is first played in the harp and then later in the rest of the orchestra is distorted both directly and by the sound world that it’s immersed into. It’s the blending of two extremely different worlds to create an entirely new one.

​

Premiered by students of Manhattan School of Music, Kyle Ritenauer, Conductor; Bossi-Comelli Hall, Manhattan School of Music, New York, NY

​