Reflection

“Lament for the Whales” is an original orchestral composition reflecting the hardships that many whale species have faced over centuries. I was faced with a unique challenge in creating this piece in that this was my very first original orchestral work; I had only arranged existing works for orchestra before. I was inspired to compose this piece after hearing YouTube videos featuring whale noises. I always felt that emotion is best conveyed through sound, with real instruments and voices, so I opted for the most accurate synthetic orchestra samples that I could find, as well as live recordings of my own voice. I believed that lyrics would obscure the true meaning of the music, so I kept the singing amorphous and open to interpretation. “Lament for the Whales” starts and ends with an open piano motif mimicking ocean waves, then opens up to a string bed for the piano’s melody to rest on. The orchestration grows wider at the entrance of low brass in the pre-chorus and builds up to a sudden cutoff before the voice comes in. Later, a short bridge opens the arrangement up for a reflective oboe solo, which dies down to just piano, until the harp sweeps the orchestra away with the last, pompous statement of the chorus in the form of a dense wall of sound. The instrumental parts represent the whales suffering alone in the ocean waters, and the choruses represent humans singing with and for the whales.