LIMINAL

Liminal refers to the space where borders meet, the place in between two states of being. For instance, the state between a larva and a butterfly, or between being awake and being asleep. In both cases, the subject is neither one thing or the other. This work depicts the journey of a person travelling the liminal space before falling asleep. Through rumination, the person faces repressed memories, and after feeling the intensity of the pain, the result is a catharsis that leads into peaceful sleep. There are five movements which run in non-stop manner, one flowing into the other as thoughts do. Musically, it goes from one spectrum to the other, from moments based on George Crumb’s music, to a cathartic impressionist cloud. I wrote this piece for my sister for her first recital at the Berklee College of Music. It was meant to open the dialogue on our parents’ divorce, something we hadn’t talked about and yet we still live under its influence.