Remnants
by Ryne Siesky

Grade 6 | 8:45 | © 2019

for full orchestra

In 2019, I composed this work in response to the recent loss of a close friend and to another friend lost seven years prior. However, after much reflection, I deduced that this narrative was fabricated to mask and deflect trauma experienced a year earlier: I am a survivor of an Asian-American hate crime. During the first year of my master’s, I found myself in a college full of pro forma diversity initiatives, such as a “diversity first” flag in a town void of racial diversity and a keynote speech whitesplaining systemic disparity as equitable challenges – it was insulting. The lack of solidarity resulted in experiential alienation for the BIPOC minority: it was not safe to write music about my lived experiences, hence the camouflaged narrative.

At the time, I had focused on what I had lost but in retrospect, I see a lot of good. I met the love of my life, found an incredible mentor, and became empowered through my experiences and my music. “Remnants” musically catalogs the consequences of experiential alienation and the transcension of trauma – things lost, now found.

Recorded October 2021 by the Mississippi Valley Orchestra and Ho-Yin Kwok.