Embiosis by davidgrahame published on 2014-07-01T09:55:26Z Winner of the Orchestra Choice Award at the 2013 NZSO/Todd Corporation Young Composer Awards. Performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, recorded by Radio New Zealand. Program Note: Embiosis is an invented word, an assimilation of em- (in/within) and –biosis (mode of life), thus ‘within a lifeform’. It is an elegy and a nostalgia for a state of being encapsulated in a warm cocoon of safety, and a time of present acceptance. The four string soloists lead the music with tiny weeping glissandi, emoting what lies between the stability of notes. They can be thought of abstractly as the ‘life-form’ enveloped within the cushion of the orchestral surroundings and colourings. The soloists are less ‘soloists’, and more representative conceptually and timbrally of the idea of the embiosis, with a set up of a solo-tutti relationship. Embiosis is built simply upon a harmonic progression, diminuted at the end. There is a great fluidity to the lines and orchestration, an ebb and flow of a living entity. - June, 2013 Genre david grahame
