Ozymandias (2014) for The Living Earth Show and Friction Quartet

Ozymandias (2014)
10 min.

Performers:
THE LIVING EARTH SHOW
Travis Andrews – guitar
Andrew Meyerson – percussion

FRICTION QUARTET
Otis Harriel, Kevin Rogers – violins
Taija Warbelow – viola
Doug Machiz – cello

Singing Bowl – Emily Orum

Filmed by Taylor Joshua Rankin. Edited by Nick Vasallo.
Short film “Elefante” written & Directed by Pablo Larcuen.
www.larcuen.com

Audio recorded and mixed by Zack Ohren at Sharkbite Studios in Oakland, CA. Additional recording by Zach Miley at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and Travis Andrews April 26-27th 2014.

PROGRAM NOTES
Composed from December 2013 to January 2014. A tone poem based on Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias”. The rise and fall of empires; in the end only their art withstands the brutality of time. Broad strokes…

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear –“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.’
–Percy Bysshe Shelley

Video premiere: http://www.nocleansinging.com/2014/08/14/an-ncs-video-premiere-nick-vasallo-with-the-living-earth-show-and-friction-quartet-ozymandias/