Gabriela – Yes, the name of this piece is the name of one of my great friends. We met at the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year at Duke and hit it off pretty quickly. When I walked into Bone Hall for Wind Symphony rehearsal, I was excited to see new faces. I saw a little flute player looking a little shy and anxious. As I did with all of the new people, I walked over and introduced myself. She was very well spoken and seemed to be a genuinely nice person. We became such good friends so fast probably because we had a bunch in common.

We got the chance to hang out a little bit and I would give her certain advice from my experience about being in college and what situations that brings. During the times we would see each other, a little rhyming phrase would pop in my head:

“Gabriela, Miss Cinderella, You can be under my umbrella”

Finally I developed a tune for it and I would sing it from time to time and it would make her giggle. We both thought it was funny and that tune stuck. Then I thought, I should do something with this. So I went on Garageband and got to work. The instrumentation is for String Ensemble, Brass Ensemble, Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, and Piano.

I spent a good amount of time on this draft and I think I developed something pretty cool and catchy! I’m hope she approves!

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