Melia Watras

MELIA WATRAS: BLACK WING, BROWN WING
for viola solo (2019)

World Premiere: Melia Watras, viola; June 15, 2019, Seattle, WA

Duration: 5:35

Program Notes:
The creation of Black wing, brown wing evolved from my many years of energizing work with theater director and actor Sheila Daniels. I wrote the piece after reading Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking. Didion experienced the tragic deaths of her husband in 2003 and her daughter in 2005. One facet that her play explores is what she describes as the vortex effect—paralyzing memories set off by everyday occurrences—that she painfully experienced in the aftermath of her husband’s death and during her daughter’s illness. In my composition, I use my own musical memories in the form of quotes from my cycle Firefly Songs, as a way to evoke Didion’s vortex effect. I also make motivic use of some of the author’s symbolism involving eyes and waves.

The title of my piece comes from a line in T. S. Eliot’s poem New Hampshire (from Landscapes). The poem held great meaning for Didion and her daughter Quintana, and Didion chose to read it at Quintana’s funeral. I was very moved by the flow of Eliot’s poem, which I reflect on by using a parlando theme, where the solo violist plays in a reciting manner.

Black wing, brown wing is dedicated to my cherished friend Sheila Daniels.

—Melia Watras