Melia Watras

MELIA WATRAS: WILLIAM WILSON
for voice and violin (2016)

World Premiere: Michael Jinsoo Lim, voice and violin; March 28, 2018, Seattle WA

Duration: 3:51

Program Notes:
The arabesque works of Edgar Allan Poe hold a special place in my heart (which generally starts palpitating, or rises to my throat as I read his Gothic tales).

Vivid in my memory is a hot summer evening from my childhood when I was up very late, hours past midnight, reading The Fall of the House of Usher. The windows were open, and although the evening was at first calm, as the unreal seemed to become real to Poe’s narrator in an accelerating pace, a wind kicked up, blowing over things in its path as it entered my room. It felt as if the book had come to life!

The idea of doubles in music and literature led me to using excerpts from another of Poe’s doppelgänger stories, William Wilson, as a text for this song, which was written for my kindred spirit, violinist Michael Jinsoo Lim.

—Melia Watras

William Wilson is part of the cycle, Firefly Songs. It can be performed independently, in different combinations with the other works, or as part of the complete set.