Crossing Over into Orchestra
The fifth track on the album is instrumental. It's not just instrumental, it's orchestral-- as in 50 living, breathing musicians interpreting your music as one body. Wow.
When I entitled this piece, I was thinking only of the text I had written before starting to compose.
"I will hide in a vast, gaping hole
Ripped open by freedom
I will journey to a tiny point and call
Love and Death to meet them"
The title ended up carrying more meaning than crossing between the two spaces in the text (the hole to the tiny point)-- it also implied that I was now officially forraying into that strange realm of "crossover". Including orchestral pieces on this album makes total sense now. It wasn't enough anymore to have different cultural influences within the smaller ensemble I had gathered to play the songs, I had to also vary the ensemble itself. So, although the text was originally meant to be sung, it ended up being orchestrated because I believe it needed the dynamic contrasts
that that special combination of plucked, hit, blown and bowed instruments in a large reverberating chamber can provide.
The pieces all together still do form a cohesive whole, I find. I hope you enjoy your journey with them.