Danielle Casos & Mason Thomas - 2021

Evening

Our goal for this project was to create a small-scale piece of music that was very accessible for both performers and audiences. Our goal with this project is to promote an emotional reaction from audiences about the issue of climate change through our music. We decided to write an art song, a genre of composition where poems are set to music for voice and piano. Before composing, we spent time researching poems about or inspired by the issue of climate change and ultimately decided on Evening by Dorianne Laux. After picking this poem, we planned out certain musical ideas or motives that we wanted to include in the music based on the words in the poem. For example, we changed to a minor key during the more sullen stanzas, but ultimately end in a major key, as we wanted to leave the audience with a feeling of hope about the future of our planet. After coming up with musical ideas based off of the text of the poem, we composed a melody and outlined a chord structure for the piece. Then we focused on flushing out the piano accompaniment to further paint the narrative, text, and emotions of the poem.