Cityscape (2022) is an eight-minute work for an orchestra inspired by the circumstances of the Coronavirus disease pandemic. In spring of 2020, a global lockdown was initiated by various countries of the world due to the outbreak of the virus. As Houston where I lived was under the lockdown, the roads congested with the traffic jam became uncrowded, and the bustling city with crowd became quiet. Under this circumstance, I composed this piece based on the common noises that we had frequently heard during daily life in the city before the pandemic—but rarely heard for the lockdown period.

This piece consists of three movements depicting the image of the urban cityscape. The main materials throughout this piece are the sounds imitating car horns. Consisting of a Major-minor chord, the car horns sound is developed in different ways throughout three movements. In particular, I would like to describe the blare of car horns in the first movement, specifically with the brass instruments. The car horns in the brass instruments gradually introduce the doppler effect by adding glissandi. In the second movement, the glissandi spread out to the other instruments in the hollow chord progressions of very high and low note, expressing a desolate city in the night. These glissandi get faster at the end of the second movement, then finally returns to the busy moment with honking of cars in the third movement. Using these familiar sounds of city through this structure, the piece reminds the audience of the treasured moment of daily life before the pandemic, then conveys the hopeful message that we will return to normal life soon.