Melia Watras

LEILEHUA LANZILOTTI: TO BE TWO
for violin and viola (2021)

World Premiere: Michael Jinsoo Lim, violin; Melia Watras, viola; April 11, 2022, Seattle, WA

Program Notes:
to be two was written for Melia Watras and her husband, violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim, and takes its title from the book by philosopher/linguist Luce Irigaray. Excerpts from the following passage by Irigaray are woven into the score:

Thanks to perception, we can become, the one for the other, a bridge towards a becoming which is yours, mine, and ours. I can be a bridge for you, as you can be one for me. This bridge can never become the property of either. The bridge which I am for you will never be mine or “to me.” I perceive you, I create an idea of you, I preserve you in my memory—in affect, in thought—in order to assist you in your becoming. While I become me, I remember you. (p. 43)

Aside from general timbre shifts, shaping of the simple melody is left to be found together, “the one for the other.”

—Leilehua Lanzilotti