Instrumentation: Full Orchestra & Live Electronics

Duration: 13:30

Commissioned by The University of Tampa Symphony

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"Fritz Lang’s 1927 expressionist silent film Metropolis has always been an inspiration to me in the way that it integrates industrialization and technology into human life. In the film, there are three tiers of society (analogous to Dante’s depictions of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell) with the Eden-like garden being a place of natural beauty while the city’s lowest tier is a machine hall where machines are portrayed by combining dangerous, industrial machines with biblical imagery. The film portrays technology and industrialization as a sort of sacrificial alter to which the lower class is fed without ever reaping the benefits of its creation or use. The film ends however on a hopeful note as Freder joins the different social classes, ending with the message that 'the mediator between the head and the hands must be the heart.'"