Foul-Tasting Winter Orange

for Marco Blaauw

For Solo Double Bell Trumpet ⋅ c. 7:00

One morning, when I was in my hometown of Sacramento, CA, I was in somewhat of an emotional nadir after experiencing a great deal of transition within a short amount of time. I walked into the backyard of my mother’s apartment, looked up, and saw an orange tree full of bright fruit sitting against a grey and rainy backdrop.

I found this image extremely striking not only for its visual contrast, but also because it made me think very consciously about how old memories are recalled and how new memories are made. Looking at that tree, I thought of days from my childhood in Sacramento, trying to eat the oranges from the trees that lined the streets and being disappointed that they were always quite bad. Simultaneously, I could feel this scene forming as a new memory in real time. The intense emotions I was feeling, coupled with the stunning visual of the nearly fluorescent oranges against the oppressively grey sky combined into something that slid into my memory like a bookmark between the pages of a novel.

So, I took a picture of the orange tree and found the HEX color code (c16f47) of one of the oranges and translated that code into my pitch set. Over the length of the piece, the initially clear cell comprised of that pitch set degrades, mutates, and at certain points becomes unrecognizable, like a rotting orange or a distorted memory.