LIMINAL

Rachel Schwabenbauer with PGE

Liminal refers to the space where borders meet, the place in between two states of being. For instance, the state between a larva and a butterfly, or between being awake and being asleep. In both cases, the subject is neither one thing or the other. This work depicts the journey of a person travelling the liminal space before falling asleep. Through rumination, the person faces repressed memories, and after feeling the intensity of the pain, the result is a catharsis that leads into peaceful sleep. There are five movements which run in non-stop manner, one flowing into the other as thoughts do. Musically, it goes from one spectrum to the other, from moments based on George Crumb’s music, to a cathartic impressionist cloud. I wrote this piece for my sister for her first recital at the Berklee College of Music. It was meant to open a dialogue on our parents’ divorce, something we hadn’t talked about and yet we still live under its influence.