Melia Watras

MELIA WATRAS: O. Reverie
for narrator and violin (2018)

World Premiere: Melia Watras, narrator; Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin; April 17, 2019, Seattle, WA

Duration: O. Reverie, 4:14; Remembrance of O. Reverie, 0:57 (total time: 5:11)

Program Notes:
O. Henry grabbed my attention the first time I read The Gift of the Magi in my junior high English class. After that I couldn’t get enough. Who can resist an O. Henry twist? When I had a weekly commute from New York City to Pennsylvania for a couple of years, time seemed to vanish as I listened to O. Henry audio books in the car. 

In O. Reverie, I contemplate memory with six of my favorite O. Henry stories (The Cactus, The Gift of the Magi, The Furnished Room, The Reformation of Calliope, The Dream and A Blackjack Bargainer) and melody. I was considering the way independent lines can seemingly float, stretch, disintegrate, or warp and intermingle in our minds. In addition to being a play on the author’s famous pen name, the title of my work references O. Henry’s unfinished, final story, The Dream, which marked a new direction he planned on taking with his writing before his untimely death.

—Melia Watras

O. Reverie is part of the cycle, Firefly Songs. It can be performed independently, in different combinations with the other works, or as part of the complete set.