Program Note |
Daylights is a short piece about color, vision, and perception. It opens with a simple melody, sung out by a solo flute. Throughout the work, this versatile and memorable tune reappears in various guises. Passages of emotive lyricism tumble into moments of playful, sparkling levity. With each appearance, the melody takes on different colors and dispositions, allowing a listener to hear it from a different perspective.
When I began composing this piece, I knew I wanted to create moments that capture the sensation of staring into a brilliant light. The word “daylights,” most often found as part of the phrase “the living daylights,” is an archaic idiom referring to an individual’s eyes or consciousness. The title takes on many meanings—eyes, personal awareness and perception, and daylight. |
Premiere |
Commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony; premiered in November 2017 at Carnegie Hall.
|
Recording |
|