The Wyoming Matter

My piece is entitled The Wyoming Matter, named after a bizarre and widely unknown incident in the ports of New York during the 1940s. My goal in writing this piece is to both experiment with the musical ideas and techniques discussed during the summer intensive, and to write for this new unfamiliar instrumentation while attempting to maintain my own voice and style. The first minute begins with great intensity and dissonance and is very densely orchestrated and establishes most of the harmonic and melodic material that will be used in the entire composition. The main theme appears in different duet groupings after this exposition and the piece mellows. The middle section of the composition will feature much lighter orchestration, but will eventually return to the intensity of the beginning. At the end a slower tempo begins. My plan is to continue with similar melodic material using the juxtaposition of duple and triple meters to set up a groove.