In encountering the work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul, I was immediately inspired by its glacial pacing and patience. Though there isn’t much music in Apichatpong’s films, the environmental sound always feels intrinsic, even primary. Above all, there is a sense that Apichatpong creates from a place of deep engagement with his own memory and experience, a practice with which I strongly identify.

During my first viewing of the visuals for On Blue, I heard music in the gestures I saw on screen. Using instruments built from orchestral sound sources (often quiet actions intensely magnified), I set about searching for what I had imagined. Through careful tuning and timbral changes, I tried to let the musical sonorities melt like the sheets on screen. Harmonies unravel, flex, ripple and relax like their visualized counterparts. Is the state of dreaming always tranquil, or are dreams volatile, like waking life? 

Residing in densely populated New York, I feel the city experiencing the night together in phases, despite the asynchronicity of our REM cycles. Here, as in the jungle where Jenjira sleeps, environmental sounds seep into our experience of the night, guiding us along the journey towards wakefulness. I sought to craft the music so that the birds, frogs, insects, and pulley sounds from Apichatpong’s film would function like members of the orchestra—or even as featured soloists—while the CSO’s instruments and Nina Moffitt’s playback voices could conjure the aviaries and ocean waves within Jenjira’s dreaming mind.

When I was presented with this opportunity to create new work for a full orchestra, one of the things that excited me most was the chance to explore the very quietest end of the sonic spectrum. To my ear, the sounds of the softest techniques convey a hyperreal intimacy, vulnerability and ephemerality, as they are usually rich with evidence of the delicate human action it took to produce them. There is, of course, a relationship between the volume and timbre (or “character”) of a quiet sound, but many instruments playing quietly at once can convey the latter without being as constrained by the former. From the outset, I imagined a full dynamic range of textures that could still feel hushed when they grew immense, where even mountainous accumulations might retain a whispering, ghostly quality at their apex. But as I began to work, I was reminded of what William Blake once wrote: “without contraries there is no progression.” It’s after thunder that I most appreciate the stillness of a soft rain.

I am grateful that this commission provided an occasion to deepen my collaboration with orchestrator Taylor Brook, as well as Nina Moffitt, Chris Pattishall, and Ian Chang, who made invaluable contributions to the electroacoustic component of the piece. Those who listen closely may notice nods to György Ligeti’s Atmosphères and Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold.

I look forward to experiencing On Blue as it comes to life on stage each night in Cincinnati. As Apichatpong wrote to me in an early correspondence: “Silence is never repeated.”

Rafiq Bhatia
September 19, 2022

In 2018, I made a film called BLUE. In it, my regular actress Jenjira Pongpas Widner is unable to sleep. She is in a bed surrounded by banana trees. Nearby, a set of traditional theater backdrops unspools, revealing two alternate landscapes: a sunset over the sea and the foyer of a royal palace. Later on, her lack of sleep seems to set the place on fire. A flicker of personal and social recollections lingers on throughout the night.

I imagine that Jenjira's insomniac fire will eventually die down and she will able to sleep. Similarly, I reflect on the past years as we appear to have slept through the pandemic. Perhaps we are ready to wake up. ON BLUE was inspired by the moments of awakening, of sunrise. As uncertainty becomes the norm, I treasure this phenomenon's consistency. It's predictable yet brings tremendous change. 

Revisiting BLUE was like re-observing and rearranging a dream before dawn. Perhaps our brains are hurriedly retreating their fragmented scenes, storing them in the shadows before consciousness emerges. I saw a blue sheet crumble like a dream. An old cinema set was reanimated for the last performance. 

When first light reaches the eyes, there is a profound sense of clarity. The color blue was giving way to the morning gold. Dream and reality coexist, memories and conditionings fade. Even the word "blue" has lost its meaning. In an instant, we are newborns with no ties to anything.

On working with Rafiq Bhatia and the CSO

Hearing, like seeing, is an individual experience. We hear the birds' calls and the morning silence in different ways. Your audio perception at fifty differs from that at twenty. ON BLUE is a personal memory that resonates with its distinct frequencies. Working with Rafiq and the CSO is an intriguing and exciting adventure for me. It's the first time I've made a film with the intention of embracing other creative forces. Their participation is critical to the film's goal of celebrating the possibilities of a new day.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul
September 16, 2022