Moth Sketches

Moth Sketches began as a piece that was to score a short animated movie about a moth. Although my musical ideas eventually parted company with the movie and my work became a standalone piece, I did find using the movie as a starting point to be interesting for a number of reasons. For one, the initial sense of the pacing of ideas came from an outside impetus, which is otherwise never the case in my music. I also found myself defining my ideas as characters in ways I would not normally do.

The piece is constructed as a very basic formal shape that involves several layers of related yet distinct material. The piece’s form is defined by the mutation of the materials in layers. There is a rotation of musical characters throughout the ensemble that takes place over the piece’s span and allows a dramaturgy to unfold. As I rotate material, I imagine I am braiding a rope involving many strands of differing colors. When one fiber comes in contact with another, both fibers’ colors are altered, so that the rope’s essential character is constantly in flux as the braid continues.

– Hannah Lash