Adagio
for orchestra (2007; revised 2016)
Messiah College Symphony Orchestra, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 2018
Duration: 6′
Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2 – 4.2.3.1 – tmp – str
Premiere: Lewis & Clark Orchestra at Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon, 2016. Paul Sanho Kim, conductor.
Adagio, composed in the summer of 2007 when Kim was a composition student at Brevard Music Center in North Carolina, is an effort to make an uncommon emotional statement using common compositional techniques. Tonality is the harmonic language, but the dissonances throughout the work are the source of its intensity. The main theme begins in the key of F Major but modulates unconventionally to B Major, the most distant key possible. Upon the theme’s return, the keys are switched. The extremes in key centers reflect the extremes in emotion portrayed throughout the narrative.
Paul Sanho Kim 