Dance Scenes from the living room (2024/2025)

for orchestra  [3(1.2.picc)3(1.2.eh)3(1.2.bcl)3(1.2.cbsn) – 4331 – timp – perc(3)* – hp – str]

Duration: 8’

Premiere: April 25, 2025 @ Roy Thomson Hall, Toronto, ON

Gustavo Gimeno (conductor), Toronto Symphony Orchestra

Commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Gustavo Gimeno (music director)

*Percussion Requirements

1 = Snare Drum, Triangle, Slide Whistle, Tam-Tam, Glockenspiel, 2 Cowbells, Hi-Hat Cymbal

2 = Slapstick, Guiro, Ratchet, 3 Woodblocks, Bongos, Bass Drum, Brake Drum

3 = Suspended Crash Cymbal, Xylophone, Hi-Hat Cymbal, Tam-Tam, Police Whistle, 4 Tom-Toms, Ratchet

Programme Note:

One of the tragedies of growing up is the discovery of shame. As children, we are free – we don’t yet know prejudice, othering, or rigid ideas of what “should be”. Over time, these ideas are imposed on us, and we carry these heavy and undeserved burdens throughout our lives. For many, it’s not until much later in life that we begin the work to shed these ideas – unlearning the shame, othering, and “should-bes” that we were taught, and rediscovering the joy, spontaneity, and freedom that once came so naturally.

Dance Scenes from the Living Room is a celebration of that unfiltered and authentic joy. Through the playful sound world of Golden-Age Hollywood tropes, it weaves pastiche and camp aesthetics throughout a vibrant musical collage of innocence and play. Within the queer community, camp aesthetics – characterized by its embrace of irony, exaggeration, and artifice – have long been a means to reclaim joy and identity through play. It chooses to celebrate the unconventional and the marginalized, rather than hide it, creating space for self-expression that defies societal norms and expectations.

At its heart, this piece reimagines the freedom of dancing in one’s living room, lost within the music, carefree and without inhibitions.  It’s not just a celebration of that inner child, but an invitation to rediscover that same joy and freedom as an adult.

Dance Scenes from the Living Room was commissioned by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra for their 2024/2025 concert season, as part of Liam Ritz’s position as RBC Affiliate Composer.