MELIA WATRAS: MEMORIES - SHADOWS - DREAMS
for string quartet (2024)
Photo by Michelle Smith-Lewis
World Premiere: Coming soon
Duration: 22:23
Program Notes:
Mother bathes baby pitch C in the ocean. As C blinks and laughs, a giant manta ray comes close to shore. What a gift for C’s future.
Along a thin, dirt road, a low roof reveals its secrets. Creatures resembling small shrimp are side by side, back to back, tightly together, creating tiles. Fins made of a shell material act as legs. Dancing in unison they sculpt the air with their almost transparent, iridescent limbs.
Through a fingertip, pitch D connects with a dashed outline of themself in another dimension.
An orb reminiscent of a giant peanut butter cup on its side appears in the air and hovers at eye view. Emitting light it speaks in a tongue not of Earth. The intensity grows to such a height we pass out and crumple to the floor.
Flying in circles as high as the tree tops, the laughing old lady remembers. The old man smiles and chuckles too.
—Melia Watras