2025 performance of Watershed, composed by Nilakash Roy-Faderman, by the Nova Vista Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Anthony Quartuccio.
Watershed
Program Notes: Deep in the bog, there lies a great beast. Slumbering for millenia, only known of in legends telling of its power. Now, a group of exiled nobility gather in the bog. In their hands, they hold the power to awaken the great beast from its slumber, to bend it to their will, to ride on the back of the titan and usher in another golden age. Or so they believe.
The bog may quake in fear, the seagulls may wheel above screaming dire warnings. But the people who have gathered will not listen. They see the grand destiny ahead of them. And nothing will stop the ritual they have begun.
The beast awakens. But it doesn’t bow to its would-be masters. It doesn’t even acknowledge them. They are too small, and it is too vast. Silently, it turns its great form away from them and lumbers off into the fog.
The little group gathered in the bog has created something much greater than their ambitions. It is a turning point for the world. It is a watershed.
Psalm
of a god of lost things
Written by Nilakash Roy-Faderman at the Irish Composition Summer School 2025. Performance by Lina Andonovska (bass flute) and Ailbhe McDonagh (cello). Recording by Ian Brabazon.
Bathynomus
Program Notes: This piece is dedicated to Bathynomus giganteus, the giant isopod. Growing up to over a foot long, it is a giant relative of the woodlouse, bearing a segmented carapace, large, reflective eyes, and seven pairs of many-jointed legs. A denizen of the abyssal plain, it scuttles in the darkness of the deepest oceans, surviving without food for up to five years, until it comes upon the fallen corpse of a squid or whale. The contrabassoon, both in its low percussive rumble and its thin, unsettling altissimo, speaks to me of the giant isopod, monstrous and alone, making its slow way through the abyssal dark.
S’vivon Sov Sov Sov (2023)
Arrangement of a Jewish Folksong by Nilakash Roy-Faderman. Performed by the Silicon Valley BoyChoir, conducted by Kaia Richards.
Gehenna, from The Four Post-Mortem Worlds (2023)
Read-through of "Gehenna," from the suite The Four Post-Mortem Worlds, composed by Nilakash Roy-Faderman, at Boston University Tanglewood Institute. Performed by the BUTI Young Artists Orchestra.
Score available here.
Dancing in the Rain (2020)
Readthrough of Dancing in the Rain, composed by Nilakash Roy-Faderman, by the Playground Ensemble.
Elegy of the Sea (2022)
Composed by Nilakash Roy-Faderman, at the Lamont School of Music Summer Academy. Performed by Ian Wisekal (english horn), Martin Kuuskmann (bassoon), and Sarah Whitnah (violin).
Score available here.
Phantasmagoria (2019)
Performance of Phantasmagoria, composed by Nilakash Roy-Faderman, with lyrics by Lewis Carroll.
Score available here.
Dance (2019)
Performance of Dance, composed by Nilakash Roy-Faderman, at California State University, San Marcos.
Score available here.
Ethereal Heart of the Earth (2019)
Digital realization of Ethereal Heart of the Earth, for oboe, clarinet in Bb, percussion, violin and double bass.
Awakenings (2019)
Digital realization of Awakenings, for Orchestra.