Schoolyard

This is my first ever 'proper' piece for orchestra. It was going to be performed by a student orchestra back home, but the conductor has postponed on me twice already and I suspect it might not ever get played, which is a shame.

It started off with the initial melody, which appeared in my head one day and stayed there for a few weeks until I finally got it down on the score. I always intended the piece to start off light and get darker as the piece progressed, although I never had any idea what the actual structure was going to be until I was almost at the end. In a way, the piece is kind of representative of aspects of my personality.

This piece features a lot of the harmonic and colour-related ideas that I've been playing around with during this last year of my master's degree. It was also my first ever serious attempt at writing for a string section, which turned out to be harder than I thought - a lot of the feedback I got from my tutor as I was writing this piece was on how low I was writing the violins and violas, because I think I was subconsciously treating them like winds. I think I managed to fix a lot of those issues by the end though.

Overall, writing for orchestra isn't something that appeals to me a lot right now, probably because I'm just not used to it, but that might change as my career (hopefully) progresses.

This... was phenomenal! Very Holst-like in its harmonies and rhythms, but I definitely heard the schoolyard playfulness there. Superb job!!!

Thank you! I've been listening to a lot of Holst lately and I think I see the comparison.

Holy cow man.