Four Seasons (string orchestra and piano)

Four Seasons

string orchestra and piano

composed 2019

Composer’s Note

“Spring” draws upon the calm breeze and pleasant feelings of the weather becoming warmer.

“Summer” brings up memories of fun, delight, playing in the green fields and the joy of school going on break.

“Autumn” conjures up feelings of nostalgia, constant pulse of leaves continuously turning and landing on the soil. The string orchestra version added a small intimate string quartet in the opening of this moment.

“Winter” features atonal clusters of notes played with the full length of the hand. Draws inspiration from four part writing, the bleak but yet beautiful snowy covers of a winter landscape.

Four Seasons started as solo piano and only Spring — the intention was the write three movements of Spring, since it’s my favorite season (although Autumn might be giving it a run for it’s money now!!) But underneath my piano teacher’s encouragement, I developed this to all four seasons and wrote it during the duration of my AP Music Theory final class project. I later wrote an adaption for string orchestra and piano since it was on the program for my high school’s spring orchestra concert, but sadly covid hit and it didn’t get it’s premiere. However, I was able to get a couple of friends together to record it (not much rehearsal time!) as a small chamber string orchestra.

Jason Lu, Darren Chang, Sherry Zhuge, Richard Luo (violins); Brian Kim, Ethan Martin (violas); Benji Shin, Anh-Tu Le (cellos); Ethan Yen, Grant Liu (cellos but playing bass part); Grace Chen (piano)

Album cover edited by my friend, Jane Jou.

Audio in video score is computer generated. See my youtube channel for video of recording or streaming services to listen to live recording.