SOCAL • CELLO • CENTRIC June 2025: Composer Highlight #7
I’m participating in a concert series of new music this June! We’ll be performing all-original, string-centric music on three dates (see photo below for info).
To help promote this collaboration, I’ll be sharing features on the composers involved!
Today, say hi to Ernest Phan — we’ll be performing his work “The Road Not Taken” for String Quartet.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both”
This composition takes its name and inspiration from the well-known poem by Robert Frost. Frost wrote “The Road Not Taken” about his friend, who felt unable to choose between the two splitting paths at a fork in the road during their walks. However, the poem holds a deeper meaning about how a decision has the potential to transform our lives. This composition aims to capture the spirit of the poem, depicting the gentleness of a morning walk and the beautiful landscape of rural America. The theme of the composition was written in Anglo-American folk music style using the text from the poem as its lyrics. It was then used to develop a set of four variations.
Variation 1, Prelude, features improvisation as a good illustration of choices and decision-making. Variation 2, A Walk in the Woods, features pizzicato stacked rhythm patterns in different meters. Variation 3, This Was the Path that I Chose, is a lyrical section, with the theme stated by the first violin. Variation 4, Barn Dance, lets us imagine that maybe the path that Frost and his friend took that morning led them by a farm where they heard local folk musicians playing… and perhaps, we could always use a barn dance to celebrate the choices we have made in our lives.
“…I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference”
Keep following for more updates as the concert dates draw near!
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