DANIEL DESPINS
Composer and Arranger
TRYST, a song for soprano and brass band (2021)
Written for Hila Plitmann and the Boss Street Brass Band.
Music and words written by Daniel Despins.
Premiered on March 7, 2022 at the Butler School of Music, Bates Hall, at the University of Texas at Austin.
As a composer, I love every family of instruments for different reasons, but the world of brass holds a special place in my heart. As a kid, the trombone was the first instrument I learned to play, and since then I’ve played in various bands throughout my life, which strengthened my love for the powerful, dynamic, exciting sounds that brass instruments can produce. As a singer, I developed a love for the medium of song too - the human voice is a unique method of self expression that can bring people together in a way that few other things can. So, when I was asked to write a piece for Hila Plitmann and the Boss Street Brass Band, I was excited to work with these wonderful people and to combine my love of these two worlds!
TRYST is a song about a romantic midnight rendezvous between two lovers. I hope that this music and these lyrics capture the undercurrent of electric excitement that people can share through this experience.
(August 2021)
She walks in moonlight and shadow
In the electric forest night
Slipping through the trees
Elusive as a shade, always just out of reach
In forest thickets black as ink
She leads me to the river
Flowing with gentle power
On the misty riverside, where the crickets sing
She beckons me into her warm embrace
Sinking into the earth, the thrill of summer night
Fills my soul with new life
Under a moonlit sky
Her luminous eyes reflect my gaze
The wind in the treetops whispers
Carrying the sound of promises made
The rhythm of the forest nightlife echoes in the pounding of our hearts
Cacophonous swelling, rising and falling in a universe all our own
On the misty riverside, where the flowers dance
We sing within this warm embrace
Sinking into the earth, the thrill of summer night
Makes us feel alive —
And our souls are electrified