Postcards from the West
After eight months of work, I have just finished writing a big orchestral piece called Postcards from the West. Total running time, about 43 minutes. At first, the piece’s subject was pretty high-concept. I started out to write a four-movement work about the four states of matter: solid, liquid, gas, and (don’t forget) plasma. But it was tough going. Maybe it comes from all the films I’ve scored, but I tend to work better when I have images in my head as I write. I started poking around the internet for pictures to inspire me and settled on four vintage postcards, each representing to me one of the four states of matter. Unexpectedly, all four images came from the American West, and my way forward became clear. Now the piece is finished, and I am hoping to find an orchestra to premiere this beast. I welcome all thoughts on this matter. Please contact me via postcard. If you’d like to hear or read the piece, you can find PDFs of the score and hear MP3s of a synth realization here.