Be the Light: Fall 2023 Undergraduate Composers' Concert

Donor Acknowledgement

This performance is in part made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2023-2024 Dobrow Series.

Program Notes

something about space

This piece was composed after taking an astronomy course. This class made me contemplate on the beauty, complexity, and emptiness of space. I was curious about how I could reflect this through music. This was the genesis of something about space.

In my mind, there are two perspectives in this piece. One is Earth’s perspective: think about a human looking at the night sky. The other is the perspective of space: think about something like the Hubble telescope or a spaceship cruising through space and viewing stars. I like to think of the pizzicato dyads as looking at different stars from the Earth’s perspective. They are small, sparkling, and full of distant energy. While there are slight differences between each of them, their differences are barely observable. As we slowly move out towards space, the differences between stars or groups of stars become more pronounced. The dyads increase in complexity until they turn into sweeping motives that represent being close and personal with stars and being able to witness stars in their full power and glory. The rapid interplay between these two perspectives should be dramatic and exciting.

While this was my narrative, you are welcome to find your own.

When Day Breaks

See through their eyes,
For there was never a more
beautiful yet horrifying view
than that of everything in-between.
When day breaks you wake,
for you and I never knew anything more
than blue skies and white lies,
yet countless others knew nothing at all.
Now, walk through fertile fields with me.
Let us share what they may never know.

Text by Naveed Perkins (2023)

In the Midst of Becoming

“In the Midst of Becoming” is the second of four movements from a suite for solo viola and piano that I am currently in the process of composing. Titled Metamorphosis, the suite depicts an intimate journey in search of love, truth, and peace in a world marred by chaos and rancor. “In the Midst of Becoming” explores the phases of life following grief, defeat, or heartbreak, when we are at our most vulnerable. However, it is during these tender times that we heal, and ultimately rebuild and reshape ourselves into someone stronger, more resilient, and more loving.

Do I

“Do I” is a piece from Nannerl, a new and in-progress pop opera. Nannerl closely follows the life of Maria Anna Mozart (1751- 1829), or “Nannerl” as her family referred to her, and examines the passionate and tumultuous mysteries of her life.

Nannerl Mozart was a prodigy- a virtuoso on the harpsichord, the fortepiano, and a musical inspiration to her brother- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Five years his senior, Nannerl served as a headliner alongside her brother as the siblings performed all over Europe and toured with their parents. Even though Nannerl was extremely talented, (there is even evidence to suggest that she was a gifted composer), as a woman in the 18th century, her life as a professional musician was not nurtured, neither by society nor her father, and was consequently cut short by the age of 18.

Following her departure from the spotlight, the events of Nannerl’s life become increasingly vague and undocumented, however this isn’t nearly the end for Nannerl Mozart. From young adulthood to old age, within her life can be found a sea of self sacrifice, passion, heartbreak, strength, and above all else- survival. Finding solace in music throughout her long and often difficult life, Nannerl cultivated her own strength and joy every day, doing her best to survive in and make the most out of her reality.

“Do I” occurs right before the end of act one as Nannerl is faced with an extremely difficult decision. She could stay in Salzburg with her father and close friends- safe within the societally acceptable life to which she’d grown accustomed. Or with the help of her brother Wolfgang, Nannerl and her lover, Franz, could run away to Vienna- where she could have a chance to pursue the musical dreams she’d long since abandoned. Panicked, Nannerl battles with herself, desperately trying to decide- does she choose duty… or desire?

Eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei breathe.
Eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei breathe.
Eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei, eins zwei-
Eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei, eins zwei drei!
So much time spent sick
So much time in that bed
So much wasted of my head If you wrote my life in notes Through composed until the end Would I finally resolve
Or would I suspend?
Ever hanging, never finding consonance-
Always waiting for the waiting to end.
Obedience is safety. Discipline. Holy and womanly, that’s what they said. But I’ve been obedient, yet I’m still waiting. I’m too tired to pretend,
To convince them that I don’t love you, that I don’t want more,
That I don’t crave the fame that I’ve missed, because I love you
And I want more, I want so much more than this.
Do I dare? Is it possible that- I dare to after all this time defy?
Could I be of significance? If I finally change the key?
Write my way to magnificence, shine so bright they’ll have to see me!
Stop that! Stupid, foolish- try to breathe.
Silly! Vapid! Harlot! Loyalty to your father, to your duty-
How could you leave him? What use would you be?
Writing little songs for the bourgeois Viennese?
Outright foregoing all propriety? All roads I take somehow lead me,
Ever chasing after a life no longer mine, always racing but never beating time.
I was a force, virtuosic, on par with my brother- a prodigy. That’s what they said. If I was adored by the public before, they surely could love me again!
Just how I love you, just how I want more, every opportunity missed, Burns in my heart like a flame to a score! A score that doesn’t exist.
And maybe that’s sinful and maybe I’m selfish. Maybe I’m simply a ghost in a concert hall. But what do I live for? Without music or Franz, I don’t live at all!
Do I dare? Is it possible that I dare to after all this time defy?
Though I tremble at the thought of falling out of flight, if there’s one thing that I know It’s that I’ve never felt so alive! Do I, do I? Do I, do I?
I do. I do, I do, I do, I do… do I?

Text by Mia Ruhman

Fractured Hope

My piece, Fractured Hope, took me on a journey of feeling the emotions, processing the emotions, understanding the event, and translating all of that into music. I felt the urge to write about an event that moved me, kept me up at night, and deserved undivided attention: the earthquake in Turkey earlier this year. This time I was a bystander to someone else’s reality. My role was to retell, but in order to achieve that I had to feel even the tiniest fraction of those emotions myself. Being in contact with a Turkish family, I went from thinking about the earthquake largely as a physical event to the huge aftermath that thousands had to deal with. The journey from desperation to some sort of peace was personified in my head as Hope. If Hope is a being, perhaps it truly cannot recover from some forms of grief. It’s fractured – but its pieces are still there. In honoring the Turkish family’s story, Fractured Hope became a commemoration of the tribulations Turkey was facing, making its way across the ocean to an audience who, like me, could just try to understand.

I am dedicating Fractured Hope to everyone who experienced the immense trauma of this earthquake, to the beautiful souls of those who perished, and to their loved ones who survived them. Special thanks to the family who bravely shared their story to make this piece possible.