Eliza Brown, A Toy Boat on the Serpentine

Описание: UC Davis Symphony Orchestra
Christian Baldini, Music Director & Conductor

Jackson Hall, Mondavi Center
June 1, 2025

To skip the spoken introduction and go to the beginning go the piece, click here: 2:40

To read an interview with Eliza Brown about their music, click here: https://christianbaldiniblog.com/2025...

Eliza Brown: "This piece was commissioned by my former youth orchestra, Philadelphia Sinfonia, in honor of my mother, who served as the president of their board for many years after I graduated from the organization. I asked for her input while composing the piece, and incorporated musical elements that we extrapolated from the Classical music she finds most moving. She and I are both fans of Virginia Woolf, and the title is a reference to Woolf’s novel Orlando. Orlando, the main character, sees a toy boat bobbing on the calm Serpentine river in London’s Hyde Park, and takes it as a sign that her sea-captain husband is safe after sailing through a storm. Orlando experiences a surge of ecstasy from this simple everyday sight, thanks to her vivid imaginative inference. So the piece moves from very small musical fragments bobbing on a glittery surface to big, Romantic musical phrases and gestures at its peak. I hope listeners feel free to imagine their own imagery along with this, and to layer their own personal significance onto the piece, just as Orlando does with the toy boat."

About the composer:
Eliza’s artistic interests give rise to questions about the interpretation and meaning of music and words that drive their scholarship, creation, and teaching. Their dissertation, A Narratological Analysis of ‘Pnima…ins innere’ by Chaya Czernowin, used methods drawn from the interdisciplinary field of narratology (the study of narrative) to examine how Czernowin’s opera tells its story by means of music alone, as singers in Pnima sing phonemes and wordless vocal sounds. Eliza writes original and co-created texts and libretti, drawing upon a wide range of influences including scholarship, contemporary poetry, and a childhood steeped in protest, folk, parody, and camp songs.

Eliza is a dedicated teacher who enjoys helping students develop as creators and engage complex ideas with rigor and enthusiasm. They are currently Associate Professor of Music at DePauw University, where they teach composition, music theory, and career development courses. Eliza has enjoyed a long-term affiliation with the Walden School Young Musicians Program, where they spent many summers in various roles including faculty and Academic Dean. Eliza holds a B.Mus. summa cum laude in composition from the University of Michigan and a D.M.A. in composition with program honors from Northwestern University.