Hay un Río Oscuro (2013)

Music by Julia Seeholzer, words by Michelle Díaz Garza and Rosa Baum

“When looking through poems to select for this piece, Hay Un Rio Oscuro truly stood out to me. Its content, imagery, and language all startled me with their maturity, as its authors were both nine years old at the time it was written. I am most often drawn to dark, yet beautiful language as well as melancholy musical content, so Hay Un Rio Oscuro seemed perfect for my compositional tendencies. Because of the poem’s ambiguous meaning, I chose to set the text in a musical world of ambiguous tonality. The piece is often mournful, but there are glimmers of goodness and juvenile innocence throughout. The piece ends on a solitary, repeated note, meant to leave the listener with his or her own image of textual meaning.” –Julia Seeholzer

Julia SeeholzerOriginally from Santa Monica, CA, Julia Seeholzer graduated summa cum laude from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA with a B.M. in Composition in 2012. During her time at Berklee, Julia received numerous awards for her compositions, including the Laurie Anderson Women in Technology Award and the 2011 Berklee Composition Achievement Award. She was also invited to participate in Yale University’s New Music Workshop as a Composition Fellow. After graduation, Julia continued her composition studies with John Corigliano and David Tcimpidis at the California Summer Music program through Sonoma State University in 2012. In addition to her more conventional musical pursuits, Julia founded and directed the Video Game Music Choir (VGMC), a 25 member vocal ensemble that performs video game scores arranged for a cappella choir.

Michelle Díaz Garza, age 9
Rosa Baum, age 9
Watsonville, CA