I had to create five paintings based on a piece that I wrote in 2020 for the New York Philharmonic. They are based on the five sections of the piece, which are named after colors whose energy symbolically represents the cycle of social movements: gray, blue, orange, pink, then all of the colors in harmony.

Gray is oppression (beneath the water), Blue is a statement (rising from the water), Orange is an interpretation (standing in the water) and Pink is a change (looking past the water at the sky). The final painting shows what the first, Gray, could never do: have color, and touch the light.

Shown below are two sketchbook spreads, put in chronological order of my brainstorming for every painting.

The piece itself was composed in 2019 for a concert in 2020, but because of COVID-19 concerns, the concert was indefinitely postponed. It was my first orchestral composition, and therefore it wasn’t my best composition— the experience is what I am proud of, not the piece itself.

If I were to rewrite it, I would only keep the main theme and the concepts/five parts. It’s also a piece that might need a smaller ensemble along with the orchestra, or just a smaller ensemble. The score of the piece is shown below in a slideshow: