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Scherzo & Adagio was written for the Spring 2026 Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic Student Composers Concert. Given the occasion, I decided my piece would commemorate my composition studio professors from six memorable and formative years of undergraduate and graduate study. This commemoration takes multiple forms in Scherzo & Adagio, but one that I would like to highlight is the recurring melody first presented by the flutes and oboes. The pitches of this melody are a (very convoluted) musical cryptogram of my five studio professors' names in reverse chronological order: Nancy Galbraith, JoAnne Harris, Joel Friedman, Andrew E. Simpson, and Stephen Gorbos. The angular melody first presented by the trumpets "spells out" my own name in a similar fashion, and I set these two ideas in succession and then in dialogue to reflect how much I owe to studio lessons once a week for twelve semesters with these talented professors.
At the same time, there's something tense or even menacing about all of this material, which shifts mysteriously into a slow, thoughtful section. Whatever types of mentors we have, when we consider the gifts they have shared with us, we can begin to doubt whether we will live up to our mentors’ hopes, or even our own. But one possible response to this kind of doubt is to focus more fully on personal growth, which is depicted in the slow section’s gradual build to an even more intense, truly celebratory return of the opening melodies.
After this celebration, the music fades away cheerfully. One thing all five of my studio professors have had in common is a contagious appreciation for the joy of writing music, and that joy is something I wish to maintain across all my future compositions.