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Emotional, yet powerful! This dramatic work for symphonic orchestra travels through the depths of the human heart that stirs to cry, love, and see a better humanity. The desire to have our voice heard, in a chaotic and changing world, is embodied within this heartfelt and serious fantasy.

In August of 2020, I went back to graduate school for a Master of Arts degree in Music Composition, and during my first semester, I took a course called "Seminar in Historical and Theoretical Analysis" where we learned about the historical aspects and background behind particular composers, pieces of music, events, and genres in the 20th-21st century. And as a composition major, one of our field projects is to compose a piece of new music that answers the questions that frame "war" and/or "peace" in some way. This is that project.

Fantasia in D Minor was composed with the current political/moral turmoil of 2020 in mind. And at the time leading up to the November presidential elections, this piece had an even bigger meaning. I thought of subjects like racism, racial inequality, and the Black Lives Matter movement, separated immigrant families, people who were persecuted for their religious beliefs, victims of human trafficking, and life for the unborn. And I dedicated this piece to all of them because they all have a common factor. They all face the same kind of pain and suffering, and loneliness, the feeling that their voices are not being heard and listened to, and that they are continuously being ignored or fought against.

This composition was, however, originally dedicated to 3rd party voters, people such as me, who don’t favor either main political party platforms for certain reasons and are persecuted from both sides for being “indifferent” or “insincere”. Which I acknowledge can be the case for anyone regardless of party affiliation, but is more-so with people like us because it feels like we can’t belong on either side and that we’re being looked down upon by everyone else.

I am not a politic. I'm not here to move you towards a particular party or ideology. Of course, despite my selfish desire to originally dedicate this piece to 3rd-party voters, there were many other people and morals that I have dedicated this composition to. But I was ultimately compelled by the cries, the fears, the emotional conflict and anxiety that I, and probably so many others, have felt trying to voice our particular concerns, to write this very sensitive fantasia. My hope is that this composition will give comfort to those who fall in to this particular scenario. You are not alone. Our hearts beat the same.