Oceans Apart
Setting: Vibraphone solo
Year of composition: 2019
Premiered: 01.06.23 Equmeniakyrkan, Linköping, Sweden.
Performer: Sofia Wik
Duration: 6,5 min

Composer’s note
This piece is built on an old melody I used to hear growing up called Byssan Lull. It is a kind of lullaby and I have always loved it. The first section of the piece is called Echoes from a Distant Memory and utilizes quite a few extended techniques on the vibraphone such as playing with a bow, glissando, harmonics etc. All to create a sort of foggy and misty feeling. In fact, the guy who made this melody very famous in Sweden used to be a sailor. The second part is called Coming Into Focus. This is where things start to get a little clearer and the fog sort of disappears. We then transition into the next section called That Sweet Melody where the melody actually fades in and appears, although more or less disguised and processed to not be too obvious for the listener. I wanted it to feel just like something that’s familiar without the listener being able to determine quite precisely what makes it so. The piece after this section moves into a major key but the melody is the same but the arrangement and obviously the key is different. If I succeeded with the aim of this piece, it should leave the listener in a sort of meditative state.