3 Pieces for Strings & Guitar

I am so excited to have the chance to be able to bridge my classical upbringing in orchestra with the more rock world that I find myself immersed in these days. I feel the whole thesis of my band Covet has been to explore emotion in music and to find a way to amalgamate everything I adore about different genres into one cohesive emotive sound. To be able to finally bridge this back into my classical world and experience both is simply a dream and has felt like the next logical progression for me. Music and visual art have been essential outlets for me in my recovery and development as a person, and as a painter, I really love finding ways to tell stories and paint a mood with sound. In my band Covet, I choose to do this with melodies and effects (which I compare to colors), and to be able to think about music dynamically and texturally in the context of a string ensemble has been such an eye-opening experience. I feel quite new to this and said yes to this project filled with excitement (and admittedly, a bit of anxiety), but I decided to just try to play to my strengths and try to create three movements that elicit different emotions and colorsmaybe even tell a story. Ive always found so much power in instrumental music, in that it feels the most empathetic. Unlike music with words and lyrics, which tell you exactly what to see and how to feel, instrumental music listens and allows you to access whatever feelings and memories you have laying dormant within. When I write music, I am very inspired to create melodies that exist as theme songs for characters or even a score for a movie that hasnt been made yet. I tried to do a little bit of that for these pieces. The body of work as a whole is meant to be a bit of an evolution and buildup and flow seamlessly from one mood/location to the next. Part i: love and hold nothing back feels to me like when I experience feelings of love and deep care and the purity of that emotion. I wanted it to dynamically blossom and build in intensity...like a little crush into fiery passion and settle into a more stable, peaceful place. Part ii: run steadfast towards the unknown is meant to just embody pure excitement and wonder in a childlike and uncynical way. Its meant to be purely uplifting and ends on a moody chord to transition to the final piece. Part iii: embrace your power is meant to be a piece to get you hyped and feel like the end of a long adventure. Perhaps the character in this story has struggled with internal conflict and has endured some turbulence and trials in their life, but is now rising to the occasion and now equipped to handle it all. I wanted the end to be dense and feel powerful and climactic and feel like a victorious, empowered self-actualization.