Cabrillo Score Submission

This two-movement Violin Concerto draws inspiration from cinema and film-noir, with a solo line embodying the essence of an "anti-hero” in dialogue with the orchestra. The first movement, “Labyrinth,” is influenced by the Hitchcock-inspired immersive-theater piece Sleep No More in New York City.

The proposed second movement is inspired by “Victim,” the 1961 neo-noir film about the blackmailing of a closeted gay man, starring Dirk Bogarde. This film was groundbreaking and controversial, credited for helping change the law on homosexuality in the UK. As a closeted individual in real-life, Bogarde's role in the film was both a professional gamble and a personal act of defiance. This music reflects on the psychology inherent in both playing a role on screen while secretly living that character’s truth in reality. By contemplating society’s imposed roles, this movement seeks to capture the tension and vulnerability in blurring the lines between fiction and truth. 

How we live like water takes its title from a line in an Ocean Vuong poem that draws quiet inspiration from a Mark Rothko painting. The piece unfolds from a simple chorale, which begins to ripple and shift, like a current gathering energy beneath the surface. I find something deeply spiritual in both Vuong and Rothko’s work. This kinship – an interplay of stillness, tension, and catharsis—is something I wanted to capture in the music. The piece is commissioned by and dedicated to the New York Youth Symphony.

Blazed in Vermilion takes its name from a 19th-century art critic’s description of landscape paintings beginning to reflect the encroaching effects of the Industrial Revolution. These painters, ahead of their time, depicted ominous clouds of smoke and skies blazing with fire—images that feel strikingly dystopian. I was moved by their stark contrasts: the beauty of the natural world set against the fire and machinery of human invention. That tension shapes the music, which channel-surfs between mechanical, rhythm-driven passages and moments of oasis, the marimba becoming a voice for nature itself.

The piece is written for and dedicated to Ji Su Jung.