CATEGORY WINNER
Abby X. “Clair de Lune”
Notes from the artist:
To me, Clair de Lune is a very nuanced, emotion-ridden piece, and it exhibits a story, one of serenity, yearning, grief, and surrender, where the one who was meant to be the shining star of the show loses a beloved and becomes fallen, yielding to the darkness.
Clair de Lune is French for moonlight, and it is as if the moon is the spectator to the story that unfolds within the changing melodies and harmonies that carries the listener all the way to the end. In the beginning, the pace of the piece is relaxed, alluding to a tranquil or content state, where our star wants to grasp every last moment he can with his beloved. Once the E-flat octave chord is struck in the left hand and the right-hand plays a continuum of chords, trouble rears its head for the pair and culminates in the rolled chords. With the start of the fast-moving 16th note passage, our star is desperate, chasing after his lost partner with a burning desire, and only when the music roars to a climax for a short period and falls back to a mezzo piano is when we see his hope fade from the sinking reality of an irreversible loss and an increasing hole in his heart. When the melody from the beginning returns once more, it returns with anguish and a crushed spirit that sees no reason to go on, hence the soft, relenting ending.
ABBY X - “Clair de Lune”
Yesaya K. - LIGHT
FAITH F. - “Going to the Movies”
Ekiveon A. - UNTITLED
