A song cycle for solo soprano, piano, and triangle based on three dreams I had chronologically in April 2024.

7.5 min • Composed 2024 • Purchase: score & parts

Composer’s notes

Three Dreams in April is a song cycle drawn from three vivid dreams I had during an emotionally difficult time in April 2024. With no time to process what I was feeling, my mind turned to dreams as a way to cope. This music is my attempt to give sound to what I couldn’t say.

Poems

The first piece, “grass and sun and me,” takes place in a vast, apocalyptic world. In this dream, the landscape stretched endlessly, like the plains of the Czech Republic, with tiny abandoned settlements scattered every few hundred miles. Solitude had driven the few people left on the planet to madness. I wandered alone in the eerie silence and came upon two houses in the distance, but woke before discovering if anyone lived there. The dream was filled with emptiness and unease—yet beneath it all, a strange, peaceful sadness remained.
In setting this landscape, I was inspired by minimalism, approaching the piece like I would an abstract painting. The dream was — at its core — about aimless drifting, so the tonal center wanders, and there are lots of moments for pause.
The Text
quiet
    peace and quiet
and grass and sun and me.
this world is vast. the sun does not set. valleys and plains stretch endlessly toward the horizon.
where have all the people gone?
where have all the people gone?
oh, the godless caresses of wind gather my limbs like a pile of leaves, and set me adrift.
after time… passing time…
quiet
    peace and quiet
and grass and sun and me.
after years, after centuries — i find an empty house nestled in the valleys.
if you’re in any state as me, you should stay away.
stay away.
where have all the people gone?
where have all the people gone?
This dream took place on the Irish coast—towering cliffs, green grass, scattered trees. I met a stranger holding a disposable camera, yelling about two strange animals in the water, one with “a face like a raccoon.” I waded in to see for myself. Naturally, the creatures charged, and instead of running back to shore, we panicked and swam deeper into the sea. Eventually, two guys on jet skis rescued us. It was so absurd I woke up laughing.
I tried to capture the dream’s whimsical panic—off-kilter rhythms, “Jaws”-like piano motives, and a constantly shifting meter that never quite settles. It pulled me far outside my usual comfort zone of slow, melodic writing, and into something loud, erratic, and unpredictable.
The Text
down an ancient path
i follow
to the beach —
where murky waves
caress the sandless shore,
and deep waters
hide the creatures underneath.
i see a woman wading in the water there.
“there’s something in the water,
something in the water!”
i hear her screaming —
aah!
This piece is inspired by a dream in which I found myself navigating a vast, unfamiliar city in the rain. I was sitting on a bus with a pillow in my arms, watching streetlights streak past in a blur, listening to the rain pattering rhythmically on the roof, and witnessing the break of dawn majestically illuminate the watery streets below. Unlike the previous two songs, the music and the text focus more on the imagery and atmosphere of the dream rather than a linear narrative.
I aimed to evoke the sound of rain through the piano, using the sostenuto pedal, tremolos, and plucky high-register melodies to mimic raindrops pattering on the keys. The soprano solo cuts clearly through the lush piano textures with lyrical, melodic lines. The climax lands dramatically on the word “light” before gradually returning to the main rain motif, concluding this song — and the entire song cycle — on a soft, staccato E major chord.
The Text
rain,
pattering rain
on the city street.
i watch the spinning wheels
turn the puddles into a misty
spray!
a pillow in my lap.
street lamps,
passing in a blurry haze.
i see faces i remember
in the window…
rain,
pattering rain
on the city street.
i watch the rise of dawn
break the darkness,
and pull back the clouds like a curtain,
bathing the streets in light!