Tetris Dreams

score available from
Wise Music

program note
Tetris dreams are not imaginary. Those who have played the computer game for extended periods may experience restless sleep due to somnambulist shape-fitting – the tortured equivalent of treading a water wheel. One imagines that one has achieved progress but the mental exertion, as with a fever, is to no avail and must forever remain in the land of nod. The strings represent the world of the dream; the winds come to represent the falling shapes and the piano, vibraphone and solo electric guitar represent the dreamer. This work, therefore, is written from the perspective of my own suffering and of several heroic attempts to trash the game from my computer. Tetris Dreams is dedicated to Matthew Hindson for helping me to waste my life playing computer games. Paul Stanhope conducted the premiere performance by Sydney ensemble Coruscations with Ken Murray as guitar soloist at Old Darlington School Hall, The University of Sydney, 8 November 1997.