Read by the Brevard Music Center Festival Orchestra on July 22, 2024.

The crayon, to all but children, serves as a dull, messy, unrefined utensil fit only for immature scribblings. As an implement of art, a serious pursuit, the crayon itself is not serious, or at least possesses unserious associations when compared to, say, the haughty and sophisticated oil pastel. 

Nevertheless, one may employ the vibrant, colorful, robust crayon just as effectively in the act of creation, with no less beautiful results. More still, the oil pastel could only dream of achieving a crayon’s childlike expressive freedom.

What then, might the mess of life sound like rendered with sonic crayons?

This particular rendering, incidentally, was adapted from a larger piece titled The Crayons of Life. The overture retains the main thrust and vibrant variety of orchestrational colors of the original work– indeed, both seek to answer the same question– but presents its musical materials in a more concise and direct fashion. In many ways, consequently, the overture exhibits its own peculiar narrative logic, distinct from that of the larger piece from which it was derived. The excisions thus made to consolidate the original work into this overture, nonetheless, have done little, if at all, to remove its naïve and youthful excitement.