About this Piece

Spanish composer Sílvia Lanao wrote Desert Bloom as an ode to Los Angeles. Having never visited LA, Lanao relied on images and stories to craft her composition for 12 musicians. A friend had told her about the desert-bloom phenomenon in Southern California, when, after a dry period, a rainstorm produces a widespread blossoming of wildflowers. Lanao says: “There’s something very sharp and tough about these mountains, and yet these delicate flowers make their way. This contrast is great inspiration for a musical narrative.” 

She began to assign sounds to imagery. “I asked myself, ‘How would flowers sound?’ Well, they wouldn’t sound the same as flowers in the Amazon—these seem more fragile, unique.” The piece opens with a close-up on the flowers, played by clarinet and flute. “I imagine they bloom, small and fragile in the landscape,” says Lanao as she describes the “agile and light” instruments. Piano and harp chime in with harmonies, illustrating a lush image. Once the flowers are established, the piece pans out to the full landscape.  

Lanao, whose work is often influenced by textures and colors, decided that the piano and trombone would provide the mountainous edginess. As sharp angles attempt to disrupt the peace, “we go back and focus on the flowers, but they sound different this time,” she says. The harmonies are sustained for longer than before as the vibrancy of the flowers starts to fade. 

For Desert Bloom—her first US commission—Lanao studied American minimalist music and tried to emulate its propulsion, “how it pulls you forward constantly.” She also turned to other desert odes like John Luther Adams’ Become Desert, a slower, drier vision of the landscape. Describing the joy and uplift of her piece, Lanao says: “Maybe it’s just in my mind, but I felt very free to get a commission from the US. It allowed me to write in a different way than a European commission would have.”

—Tess Carges