UCLA

The initial spark which blossomed into half-eaten moon was the instrumentation, stemming from Stravinsky’s Les Noces, but the true inspiration for the work came from the text, written specifically for this piece by Steven Gudino. The text explores the process of grief, as the speaker copes with the loss of a close loved-one; further themes such as memory, time, and anger, which are prevalent in the text, manifest in various ways throughout the work, emerging in the recurring melodic themes, ostinati, and harmonic landscapes. The piece begins with a quiet, melancholic passage as the speaker remembers pleasant memories of their loved-one, soon morphing into anger and denial. The anger then fades into sparse passage of depression, leading finally to peace and acceptance.