About this Piece

 Julia Adolphe’s music works are performed across the U.S. and abroad by renowned orchestras and en- sembles such as the New York Philhar- monic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, James Conlon and the Cincinnati May Festival Chorus, soprano Hila Plitmann, pianist  Gloria Cheng, and the Bravo! Vail Music Festival, among others. Current commissions include choral works for the Brooklyn Youth Chorus and Peninsula Women’s Chorus and a comic opera entitled A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears, based on the novel by Jules Feiffer with a libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann. A native New Yorker living in Los Angeles, Adolphe pursues a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the USC Thornton School of Music. Underneath the Sheen was com- missioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and premiered on September 27, 2018. (JuliaAdolphe.com)

Underneath the Sheen envisions the movement of light edging and shining through a canopy of leaves and branches as observed from the forest floor. The endurance and quiet omnipotence of California’s Redwood trees served as the source of inspiration. Standing beneath these trees is a humbling and exhilarating experience, a stunning reminder of the simultaneous power and fragility of nature. The immense roots, twisting and turning, the mist hanging in the air, and the beams of light entering the forest ceiling create a striking enclosure, encasing the observer in an otherworldly realm. The music explores this oddly foreign yet deeply intimate atmosphere, a sense of a lost home, a state of vulnerability. — Julia Adolphe