Exaltations (2020)

General Information

Movements:
i. bliss is it in this dawn to be alive
ii. to be young was very heaven

Commissioner: Yale College New Music, for Music from the Copland House
Written: February – March, 2020
Duration: ca. 9.5’
Instrumentation: vln + pf

Performance History

March 3, 2020 (open reading): Music at the Copland House (Curt Macomber [violin] and Michael Borskin [piano])
March 5, 2022: Epongue Ekille [violin] and Benjamin Beckman [piano] on the Yale Undergraduate Chamber Orchestra’s Student Composers Concert, Silliman College, Yale University, New Haven, CT (World Premiere)

Perusal Score

~ This score below is intended for perusal purposes only, and may not be used for performance. To obtain performance materials, please click here. Thank you! ~

Program Note

In the spring of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic disrupted our world. Businesses closed, performances were canceled, and students at universities were sent home – as a first-year at Yale College, I was one among many.

I wrote Exaltations for the ensemble ‘Music from the Copland House’ for Yale College’s ‘New Music at the Beinecke’ concert series. The titles of the movements – “it is bliss in this dawn to be alive”, and “to be young was very heaven” are both paraphrases of lines from Wordsworth’s The Prelude. At the time, I was particularly taken with life. Between experiencing my first spring in New Haven (I had grown up in Los Angeles, where signs of changing seasons are nonexistent) and the beginning of a new romance, I was simply happy, and this piece became an expression of that joy. But with the pandemic, everything changed. My life – alongside so many others – was indefinitely put on hold. The premiere of this piece was canceled.

Exaltations has now, for me, taken on a huge emotional significance, not only because it is the last artistic vestige of my life before coronavirus, but also because the world premiere performance will hopefully be given at a time when the pandemic has passed. A piece written as a celebration of life will again become a celebration of life in a whole new context. But no matter the circumstances, Wordsworth’s sentiment continually rings true: it is bliss, in any dawn, to be alive.

Recording available upon request. Please use the contact form linked in the menu above, or email me at ben.beckman@yale.edu.