musica pyralis

Most of my music tries to filter the sights and sounds of my surrounding environment through the instruments I'm writing for, rather like a musical sieve. In musica pyralis, [Music of the Firefly], the orchestra sings the summer soundscape of my home in rural Connecticut, where, thanks to little light pollution, fireflies bashfully illuminate the nightly cacophony of frogs and crickets and many other little creatures. Nature is the best orchestrator – despite the saturated soundscape, each noise-maker can hear and be heard as they occupy distinct registral and timbral niches. I try to capture a glimpse of this miraculously transparent density in this (mostly) brisk concert opener, and set to song the gently omnipresent twinkle of the phontinus pyralis – the Common Eastern Firefly.

– Katherine Balch