12:55 am
12:55 AM (2025)
for soprano, double bass, and piano · ca. 7 minutes
Instrumentation: Soprano, Double Bass, Piano
Text:Vanessa Y. Niu
PROGRAM NOTE
12:55 AM focuses on exploring the paradox of feeling both colossal and small: our minuteness before the natural world, and the vastness we carry within. The poem reminded me of discussions I've read in the past about nature, humans' relationship with it, and how that relationship evolves as society and culture develop. Additionally, the idea discussed in the poem resonates with how I see the process of creating art — both involve a sort of surrendering. Whether to nature, to music (letting go of judgments and simply enjoying the process of creating something), or to forces beyond individual will.
I wanted to capture the imagery and tensions in the poem through specific melodic motifs, harmony, and gestures. For instance, using Bartók pizzicatos in the bass to evoke the roughness of rocks and the rugged texture of the desert wilderness, or using glissando in the bass and voice to portray the feeling of “Skat[ing], surf[ing], surrender[ing] to the desert night.”
Ultimately, I want the piece to sit with that paradox. As Pascal wrote, we cannot see the Nothing — our smallness before nature — or the Infinite — the vastness that surrounds us and that we carry within; the music asks us to feel them.
TEXT
12:55 AM
by Vanessa Y. Niu
I am always looking at the stars these days
At night, against the blanched, flat ceiling
It is the same colour during the night as it is during the day.
In Arizona, I remember sleeping in the cold divine, unimposing, warm,
And blue, blue, blue, black.
Soft against my skin, the nape of my neck and my hungry eyes
The rocks outside our car warmed by the early March sun as we
Rumbled across, finally natural, plucked from our parasitic nature and
Placed in a set quiet and blanketed.
Colossal, I was, so small as we
Skated, surfed, surrendered to the desert night
No longer holy, tainted, reimagined, original, primitive, parasitic
No longer God's greatest invention
I am some sand, supine and strangely here.
PREMIERE & PERFORMERS
World Premiere: November 3, 2025 at the Juilliard Composers’ Concert, Paul Hall, The Juilliard School
Performers: Madison Z. Varriale (soprano), Moa Glimberg (double bass), Haoran Cui (piano)
Text by: Vanessa Y. Niu
