World Premieres

2016-2019       2008-2009       2006-2007      2001-2005      

2009: Lacrimae Beati "Tears of the Blessed One"

"Lacrimae Beati (2009) means "Tears of the Blessed One," the blessed one in this instance being Mozart. The title also refers to the source material for this ten minute work - The Lacrimosa from the Mozart Requiem. It is generally assumed that the first eight bars of the Lacrimosa, are among the last that Mozart wrote. For nearly 30 years, I have thought about those bars, and the circumstances in which that music and most of the Requiem were composed."

-Richard Danielpour

2008: Four Scenes

"Four Scenes is a work for double string quartet, antiphonally spaced; the pieces attempt to capture the mood, if not the actual content, of several Korean folk tales. I was drawn to the subtle but present differences between Korean and better-known European fairy tales; perhaps most importantly, numerous such tales have not been softened up or prettified for more upper-class readers, as is common in Western literature, and thus end in violent, tragic, or unexpected ways and/or feature content that would have been considered unacceptable in Europe of the same period."

-Jay Greenberg