The Other Rainbow

The Other Rainbow was commissioned by the New York Youth Symphony in 2005, and it was premiered by the NYYS under the baton of Paul Haas on February 26, 2006. The title is a personal reference to the blurring between dreaming and waking, also known as a hypnopompic trance. I was trying to wake my college roommate one morning and upon waking, he told me that he heard me say ?the other rainbow? in a dream that he just had. The music begins with the violence and tension of the waking state. Through a series of gradually calming sections, the piece descends into an ethereal dream-like state, with undulating harmonics in the strings supporting solos in the winds and strings. The listener is then jarred awake, and after a moment of confusion, the violence of reality returns. Building until it cannot build any further, the piece ends in a glorious explosion of sound. The Other Rainbow was awarded 2nd prize in the 2006 USC Undergraduate Symposium. It was also a finalist in the 2006 ASCAP Morton Gould composition competition and was chosen by Joseph Schwantner to be performed in the 2010 Omaha Symphony New Music Symposium.