Eleven Branches (悼念)

Eleven Branches (悼念) was written for the inaugural concert for the San Gabriel Valley Symphony, in memory of the eleven lives lost in the 2023 Monterey Park Shooting.

The piece plays on the patterns inherent in the Fibonacci sequence, a numerical pattern that seems to govern a lot of how nature operates. The pattern is as such: each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers, starting with 0. The resulting pattern is 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.

This pattern is not just fascinating mathematically but can be found in how patterns in nature play out. This pattern governs how trees form branches, how flowers develop pedals, and ultimately finds its way into the very fractal nature of organic life here on Earth.

When I was asked to write a piece in memory of the lives lost in the 2023 Monterey Park shooting, I thought back to my own experiences with mass shootings - particularly the Borderline shooting that took place in my home town of Thousand Oaks, CA, when I was still in high school. I remember vividly the pain that our community shared, and how completely unnatural the event felt, so I resonated very much with the prompt to write something in memory of the 2023 Monterey Park shooting. Tragedies like this just should not happen, they make no sense, and they don't fit with our expectations of those around us.

Eleven Branches (悼念) is about this unnaturalness, and thus the piece is entirely built around an "unnatural" Fibonacci sequence: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 11. This sequence is the musical DNA of the entire piece, and serves as a metaphor for the impossibility and unnaturalness of the Monterey Park shooting, while gesturing towards a future with each one of them in our hearts and memories for years to come.

Eleven Branches (悼念), in memory of Xiujuan, Hongying, Lilan, Mymy, Muoi, Diana, Wen‑Tau, Valentino, Ming Wei, Yu‑Lun, and Chia Ling.