Silence

I like the idea of the rebels This is a GREAT piece! I really think you depict silence with noise about as well as you can! It's great. I really don't have anything that I see is wrong. I have a question and one comment though about the cello part:

Is the harmonic A-E supposed to be on the open string, with E fingered harmonic? In that case, just write E with a harmonic sign, no need for the A. If you want an artificial harmonic, fingered A and lightly E, then it should be B and E (B fingered) for that.

AND at the end use tenor clef not treble. That gets confusing and it's not that high.

Really great work though! Keep it up!

Just from looking at the score you need to fix your syllabic emphasis. Throguhout there's words that have the incorrect emphasis because of the rhythmic placement of the word. For example, rebellion should be re-BEL-lion, not RE-bel-lion. Silence should be SI-lence, not si-LENCE. Regret should be re-GRET not RE-gret.

A useful process my composition teacher suggests is to set the text to a rhythm that is in a generally natural speaking tone and with proper emphasis before setting it to music. That way the syllabic emphasis will be correct no matter how you alter it to fit your accompaniment.

Odd, Meredith was able to sing it without any problems at all - and it sounded so natural....

This is extremely haunting -- I actually got goosebumps after I finished listening to it, and allowing myself to process the music (I know this is unusual, most people get goosebumps during the music, but sometimes this happens to me instead I think it's because of the intellectual concept of the music, its "story", as opposed to being moved by the actual vibrations, in this case).

In this case, I outright disagree with Tokke -- I think the sense-stress is proper for what you're going for, and I can't imagine the mood being as effective if portrayed in a more "sensible" way. Sometimes the "wrong" way, is the artistic way, if done tastefully, and I think you succeeded in that O-so-slippery slope, personally.

As for what direction you could take, I foresee two options:

1) That open 5th tremor in the cello could make way for a very smooth, flowing texture, (think the middle of Clair De Lune, with the open 5th tonic-dominant ostinato in the left hand) furthering the lilting-yet-creepy quality of the piece with a velvety charisma, (and it would thus be a sharp bit of rebellion, with a retreat into a softer tone. Perhaps you'd ramp it up in intensity after that)

or

2) the fact it's a 16th value tremelo could mean that the "rebellion", whatever it is, is now getting geared up to get intense immediately, and you could really rev up some noise, then choosing to die down after that.

But of course, there are infinite options available to you -- I wonder which direction you'll decide to take it?

Oh my, a flash of light just hit my brain. Is this "that" piece we were chatting about? -- I hadn't made the connection until now. I won't say what it is, though, since you probably don't want it spoiled, seeing as how it's not in the description. (I'm not sure if it is, though)

So ... ... ... silence, huh? Well then, essentially, this is 4"33 done right

Thanks for sharing with us! I look forward to seeing the completed piece ^_^