The Epiphany Premiere

The Epiphany is a narrative work inspired by events in my personal life that happened in the months preceding March 2026. The feeling of betrayal is a common human experience. At some point we all are betrayed/abandoned by someone we were close to, and it is the epiphany of that realization that this music captures. There are 7 specific narrative points in the work: Wandering, Lost, Confusion, Foolishness, Realization, Denial, and Anger. The piece starts in the middle of a wandering phrase that feels like it should go somewhere else however it presents a full throated music of the state of being lost. The work is based on a 6-note and 4-note pairing using a musical anagram, both of which are constantly vertically and horizontally transposed and altered. This creates extremely harsh, dissonant passages and chords. Upon realizing its own dissonance, the music abruptly shifts to a “Clown Fugue” using Fucik’s March of the Gladiators and the aforementioned anagrams to create musical phrases. To show realization, the piece starts more open and slowly crushes itself until it presents a full throated scream with 2 half steps in 3 octaves (the most dissonant sound). The music itself is unrelenting; everytime it seems like the music is dying down or coming to any sort of resolution, it erupts even more dissonantly than before. This music is not meant to be beautiful, and is not a piece I anticipate many people will come to revisit, but at its core it presents a story familiar to all people. While I will not disclose the events that inspired the work, I hope others will find meaning within their own interpretations, and that in hearing this work people can see themselves in it and allow the music to pour the feeling out of them. The Epiphany was completed March 14, 2026 in Waco, Texas. The Epiphany was premiered May 2, 2026 in Waco, Texas by: Flute: George Diaz Oboe: Lara Selman Clarinet: Marco Medina Saxophone: Chris Contreras Horn: Kaitlyn Johnson Bassoon: Anders Johnson