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Wonderful orchestration - lovely, lovely color! I find this orchestration to be incredibly balanced - fresh and innovative, while holding to the character of the original. As @Alex Weidmann said, I also think the flute choir was an excellent idea. Your choices feel very intentional, and I enjoyed listening to your orchestration! I would love to see how you might approach something by Bonds or Price.

I wrote this piece back in 2018, when I was still in college. The conceit is that it's a theme and variations with 2 themes, one on each end. The variations are played starting with one theme and ending with the other. To add to the compositional complexity, the piece is reversible: you can start with the other theme, play the variations in reverse order, and end with the first theme. "Variations" should probably be in air quotes - they're really more like microscopic character pieces that use the themes as a jumping off point. I've given this piece a lot of thought over the years - most people I've shared it with enjoy it, although they disagree about which order is better (which I consider a success ). The most common criticism I've heard is that the individual variations are too short. I'm curious - what do you all think? I've grown a lot ear-wise since I wrote this piece, even though I haven't written very much since college, but I'm still very happy with it for the most part. I'm thinking of revising the work and expanding some of the sections (e.g. N2, N3, S3) to give them a bit more symmetry. I might also try to get the work published, although I don't expect major publishing houses to be super interested or to get it to a wide audience. Here is a pair of recordings I made of the piece right after I finished writing most of it, synced with the sheet music. I later added a cadenza to the opening of N1 which is not included in this recording. Chiastic Variations, Op. 6a Chiastic Variations, Op. 6b

Hi Luis, This is a great piece to choose for orchestration! I'm sure I've played this on the piano in the past. It uses one of Debussy's favourite tricks with its harmonic planing, and has some lovely impressionist touches. I wonder, are there any other orchestrated versions; or is yours the first? Using a choir of flutes was a neat idea, and I like your harp harmonics (near the start). Also harp with glockenspiel is an effective combination that I probably wouldn't have thought of. My only wish is that you had slightly better instrument libraries to do justice to your score, as the rendition doesn't always sound fully realistic.

Thanks for the feedback. I have thoughts, but I want to get other people's first impressions before adding my own bias.

A very successful orchestration 😊. I enjoyed listening to it. Great balance and color! Mark