Responding to the Waves (2016)
Solo violin
Duration: 11’
I. Chrysalis
II. Nets of Wings
III. Fractures
Commissioned by Michiko Theurer
Premiered March 13, 2017at The Dairy Center, Boulder CO
Michiko Theurer
Read more about Michiko’s Circling the Waves project
Score available through PSNY
These pieces are a response to paintings by Michiko Theurer in dialogue with Virginia Woolf’s The Waves.
“Look,” said Rhoda; “listen. Look how the light becomes richer, second by second, and bloom and ripeness lie everywhere; and our eyes, as they range round this room with all its tables, seem to push through curtains of colour, red, orange, umber and queer ambiguous tints, which yield like veils and close behind them, and one thing melts into another.”
— Virginia Woolf, The Waves
Press:
“Balch’s complicated “Responding to the Waves” (2016), undulated with gossamer lines and translucent colors that became more present and insistent through the movements.”
“Responding to the Waves…skittered with restless, high-pitched energy…[the violin] shivered, hummed, and jittered its way through three musical movements.”