seawall blvd (2022-2023)

Movements:

I. anchor-ebb-flow

II. barefoot on the jetty

III. message in a bottle

Written: June 2022 — January 2023

Duration: ca. 6.5’

Instrumentation: 3.3.3.3 + 4.3.3.1 + timp/perc[3]/hp/pf/str [symphony orchestra] OR 1.1.1.1 + 1.1.1 + perc[2]/str [chamber orchestra]

Performance History

October 30, 2022: Pacific Chamber Orchestra cond. Lawrence Kohl — Orinda Library Auditorium, Orinda, CA (World Premiere — chamber orchestra version) — programmed for Dream American Workshop

February 24, 2023: USC Thornton Symphony cond. Donald Crockett — Bovard Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA (World Premiere — symphony orchestra version) — programmed for New Music for Orchestra

April 28, 2023: UCLA Philharmonia cond. Gan Xiong — Schoenberg Hall, Los Angeles, CA — programmed for Hear Now Music Festival

Program Notes

I grew up on the Texas Gulf Coast, between Nassau Bay and Galveston Island. The water is muddy-brown, the sand is coarse and sticky, and the beach annually houses miles of washed-up seaweed that smells terrible and attracts flies. About once or twice a year growing up, I would go through these phases of romanticizing the beach and satisfy the urge by letting my feet sink into the shore until I nearly step on a syringe and remember why my family doesn’t go to the beach that much. Why are people so obsessed with the beach? Like, why is this such a hub of American culture? Why do songs about the beach dominate the pop music industry? The beach sucks! —all thoughts that crossed my mind. My first year living in Southern California, I went to Santa Monica on a class field trip and instantly realized, oh, this is why people are so obsessed with the beach.

California beaches are oases in which locals and visitors alike want to live, breathe, and bleed. But what does Galveston have that none of these paradises have? The Seawall Boulevard.

Galveston is a barrier island, a natural (albeit pretty ineffective) defense against hurricanes. The Seawall lives up to its name— it’s a man-made enhancement to the barrier structure; a 17-foot concrete wall emerging from the beachfront, with Galveston’s busiest tourist hotspot resting atop it. The Seawall and its beaches have been home to countless memories of my lifetime, from birthdays, to graduation parties, to senior prom, to an escape from the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, to Mardi Gras parades, to the annual Santa Run holiday marathon, to crucial moments in my relationships that shaped me into the person I am today.

I originally wrote this piece (for chamber orchestra) with the title “chrysaora”, referring to a genus of jellyfish called sea nettles. I wanted the piece to be a summation of my hyper-romantic experiences with the Pacific Ocean. In hindsight, I realize what I wrote has nothing to do with the Pacific. I listen to the piece, and I think about the Seawall, the Spirit Airlines of beachfronts, the beach I grew up with, a place where I kissed and played and cried. With this reimagining of “chrysaora”, I have decided to embrace the true subconscious inspiration that guided the original.