It Remains To Be Seen

Nico Muhly's It Remains To Be Seen was written in 2006 for for full Orchestra and has a duration of approximately 11 minutes. Composers Note: It Remains to be Seen was written for the Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s 40th Anniversary Gala in July 2006. The piece begins with a chord identical to the one at the end of Stravinsky’s Firebird suite and proceeds into a series of charged nocturnal episodes. I wanted to treat the feeling of having just heard music, and being expected to make one’s own – referencing the experience of leaving a BSO concert at the shed, walking back to BUTI on a curvy back road, arguing about music in pairs and threes, andat the sign of bright headlights from behind, reorganizing in single file as a car filled with happy concert-goers speeds by. The piece is a nine-minute navigation of an excited, occasionally illuminated, dark road filled with arguing, cars, fragments of remembered music, and a constant, propulsive pulse. Nico Muhly