Details

Year: 2025
Duration: 10’
Instrumentation: orchestra
Commissioner: New York Youth Symphony; Andrew J. Kim, music director
Premiere: May 29, 2025 at Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage

How we live like water (2025)

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.