Masiarek - Jardin Caché d'Ann (Live world premiere)

My "Jardin Caché d'Ann" received its debut performance in the GHHS Orchestra Spring Concert this Thursday. I am so fortunate and lucky to have worked with these musicians and put together my own original composition, an opportunity rarely available especially for younger composers! The process of putting together a world premiere has been a huge learning experience for me. I've learned a lot about all the work and coordination necessary to bring about a performance of completely new music out of thin air (or rather- my mind!).
"Jardin Caché d'Ann" translates to Ann's Secret Garden which is an actual place on the campus of the Brevard Music Center, which I attended last summer. The Garden was my muse during the 6-week long intensive camp and I would find great solace and pleasure in spending my downtime reading or lounging in the secluded Garden. True to its name, it was on the remote far side of Lake Milner and most often the time I spent in the Garden was alone, during which my imagination dreamed up a cycle of 5 poems, the cycle being entitled "Ann's Secret Garden", where I captured my impressions of my surroundings. Here is the program of the poems:
Ann’s Secret Garden
I - Ungated Entrance
II - Idyl
III - Dance of the Wildflowers
IV - Ants Wandering the Mossy Stone at Night
V - Water Angel at Lake Milner and the Palace of Clouds
I'd later come up with the idea of writing each poem into a solo piano piece (I was studying as a pianist) in the late days of June at the camp. The poems were never meant to be put to song as lyrics, rather I formed each poem into a musical piece based on the same impressions I drew upon for the text. The subsequent 5 piano pieces are grouped in a single multimovement work entitled "Jardin Caché d'Ann" because I like French :). Neither the poems nor the original pieces are completely finished, because the compositional techniques I want to use I haven't developed yet.
This performance is of an orchestration I wrote of the first movement, the Ungated Entrance. This is the only original piano piece completely finished and is about 2 minutes long. In truth, I wouldn't include this orchestration in the 'canon' of my Secret Garden set because I expanded and extended so much of the original material that it because much less an orchestration than an arrangement or fantasy variations on the original 1st movement! However, there is nothing from outside of the set (that is to say, new material) and all the music you hear is either variation and recontextualization of past material or lightly sourced from the other movements of the set. And so, in my mind, this is still a piece about Ann's Secret Garden though it has taken on quite a new figure to stretch into 13 minutes of music.
The first three stanzas of this poem are represented by the first melody introduced. The last two make up the second theme, but it's less obvious and much sweeter than the capricious first theme.
Additionally, the poem may be interpreted as a program for the music
I - Ungated Entrance
Somewhere below that sauntering palace
Made of towering, weightless mountain clouds
Therein lies the most wild scene:
And only by its approving grace
May you see that secret, hidden green.
Why should it have an imprisoning gate?
Firm and wild, the will of the Garden is
It easily seals itself by altering fate
Slightly bending a path around its edge
Or blending the brush facade so subtly.
This means it is truly wild and free
- gates contain as well as protect -
And this Garden feels the guard only of tree.
Aboriginal air is without taint
All sing and dance without restraint.
High above on the tallest cliff
A shining water Angel perches dearly
Over the Garden from the cloud.
She pours a little watering can
And in her Garden, it rains!
She softly sings for the living Garden
An Angel song of bliss and life
And in donning an earthly form of flesh
down to her Garden, in a misty cloud
She silently glides to observe.
0:00 Intro
2:20 Dedication
3:55 Performance

[@Lemonskync]

amazing! your composition is beautiful. so proud of you!