3 Scenes from Paradise Lost
PDF Score
By 2024, it was clear that we could no longer stay Chile. The Universidad Austral, once a lifeline, had become financially and morally unsustainable. Emanuelle had already left. My wife and I spent much of that cold, rainy southern winter without heat. There was no money for tuned pianos, for string replacements, for progress. Our children were not learning in school, and we couldn’t afford better. We were grateful for health, friends, and the love of our community, but everything else felt threadbare. We had to leave. In that limbo—between worlds—I found refuge in poetry we read aloud at night: Ercilla’s La Araucana, Schiller’s Elysium, and above all, Milton’s Paradise Lost. Out of that came Three Scenes from Paradise Lost, for solo violin. The work tells a literal story: Satan summoning his army; Eve biting the apple; Michael sealing Eden. As Milton’s language stirs dust with angelic wings, so too did I try to let the violin sing of the Fall.