for solo cello ​

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As part of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory's Young Composers' Academy, I was tasked to write a small solo cello piece. Given the short runway for this project, I opted for very simple concepts and constructions in this work.

 

From a technical standpoint, the music is constructed based on a single note D. Two central forces are dominant in this work: consistency vs change. The rhythmic dimension is the simplest analytical perspective: tremolo figurations which provide a stable rhythmic momentum, are often disrupted explicitly with much longer notes and accelerandos, and implicity through using tremolos and breath marks.

 

I see this work as one continuous and connected musical tapestry. It is not structured in a traditional formal sense, but evolutionary and reactive. These interruptions are inserted organically, as points of interest when the music is just about to become stale.

 

The title of the work, flight, is more symbolic rather than programmatic. I chose this title as an abstract representation of an object/creature/being taking flight, a gradual process of emergence. I shall leave the listeners of the work to form their own associations and interpretations as to what takes flight.

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