Instrumentation: flute, violin, piano

Length: 11:00

i. on the precipice, eyes skyward (5:00)

ii. pebbles (1:30)

iii. seafoam on sandstone (5:30)

Year: 2024

Premiere performance: Salastina (Maia Jasper White, violin; Benjamin Smolen, flute; HyeJin Kim, piano)

Written through Salastina’s 2024 Sounds Promising Young Artist Fellowship

The concept of sky, and sea, and stone came to me at a viewpoint on Point Mendocino Trail, a beautiful trail on the Northern California coast. As I stood on the edge of a cliff-face peninsula over the ocean, I felt the sky rising above me out of the rock face and stretching towards the horizon to touch the ocean, and the ocean, in turn, lapping against the rocks to complete a loop of interconnectedness. The interconnectedness of the ocean, sky, and rock made me think of my perception of my life’s trajectory at different points in time.

I can explain it most simply this way: if I was standing at the base of the cliffside, or out sailing on the ocean, I wouldn’t be able to see where sky and sea and stone all meet. But the meeting point of the sky and sea and stone is clear to me from the top of the cliff. Similarly, lookingat my life from where I stand now, I can connect the dots of past triumphs, trials, and tribulations and see how they lead me to where I am. But at the time of each of these pivotal events, I had no idea how they would propel me forward. In the thick of the moment, it’s hard to see how everything relates.

Musically, I translated the idea of perspective by writing in the extreme high and low registers of each instrument - it was the best way I could think to portray everything from the sky stretching high overhead, down to the ocean churning hundreds of feet below where I stood. Each of the three movements are inspired by different visual cues I experience at viewpoint. i. on the precipice, eyes skyward is inspired by the view of the sky rising overhear and stretching to the horizon, where it meets the water. ii. pebbles is a short, playful interlude inspired by the tangle of small rocks and succulents that dotted the stony peninsula, and it follows one pebble’s journey tumbling down the cliffside into the ocean below. iii. sea foam on sandstone is the final movement, inspired by the beautiful blue-green waves swirling and crashing against the cliffside and rock formations below. The water ebbs and flows depending on the time of day and the strength of the wind, so the movement ends with waves crashing up against the rock face, pushing the viewers eye-line up towards the sky, where the first movement started.