The Scarlet Skies of War
for voice and chamber ensemble
Taja Astar, 2023
Text: Anna Astar
Durata: ~ 7:00
Winner of the “SYN(es)THESIS” Composition Competition 2023
Special Award "Classic FM Radio”
Category 1: Musical composition, inspired by a painting
About the piece
The piece is a reaction to the images of war that our life seems to have been full of for more than two years now, since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. The picture by Drago Dochev, with its bright orange red and sketchy outlines of a hostile landscape, was chosen, for it felt as resonating with the sense of violence, angst and desolation that war brings about. The symbolism that appears to be buried in the image as though invites an attempt not only to translate the colors and abstract graphic images into music, but also transfer art into the dimension of actuality, synthesizing it with the real: the social, the political, the global, and at the same time, with the emotional and deeply personal.
An idea connected to the picture was being developed, when another war, in Israel and Gaza, took its terrible start on October 7, 2023, and the mind responded with a renewed reaction of terror and pain. Then, a short poem was written to express the emotions, and the piece became a song, with a lamenting female voice as its soul.
Choral Works
VOCAL TEXT (by Anna Astar)
How can the mind stand all this pain,
how can the eyes
stand seeing the seas of scarlet paint
flooding the skies?
How can the air absorb this blend
of blood and fire,
how can the earth stand so much hell
and keep so quiet?
