to grow in lightness (2020) for viola, percussion, harp and piano (excerpts) by Paul Novak

to grow in lightness (2020) for viola, percussion, harp, and piano

i. filigree cities
ii. cities lined like a hand's palm

performed March 2020 by Sebastian Stefanovic, viola, Nick Finley, percussion, Cindy Qin, harp, and Chelsea de Souza, piano

​“….in his dreams now cities light as kites appear, pierced cities like laces, cities transparent as mosquito nettings, cities like leaves' veins, cities lined like a hand's palm, filigree cities to be seen through their opaque and fictitious thickness.
"I shall tell you what I dreamed last night," he says to Marco. "In the midst of a flat and yellow land, dotted with meteorites and erratic boulders, I saw from a distance the spires of a city rise, slender pinnacles, made in such a way that the moon in her journey can rest now on one, now on another, or sway from the cables of the cranes."
And Polo says: "The city of your dream is Lalage. Its inhabitants arranged these invitations to rest in the night sky so that the moon would grant everything in the city the power to grow and grow endlessly."
"There is something you do no know," the Khan adds. "The grateful moon has granted the city of Lalage a rarer privilege: to grow in lightness."
-from Chapter 5 of “Invisible Cities” by Italo Calvino

to grow in lightness was written for violist Sebastian Stefanovic and harpist Cindy Qin for their graduate recitals in Spring 2020.

Image: Karina Puente