Ben Tibbetts Studio: Piano Performances and Original Music

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The Nightmares of Odette

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Warning: contains mature content

This is a series of dark animated dreams, accompanied by original music for an antique reed organ.

"Odette" is the main character in Tchaikovsky's ballet, Swan Lake. In the ballet, a prince named Siegfried falls in love with a beautiful woman named Odette. Odette has been turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer named von Rothbart, and can only be restored to her human form by the love of a pure and faithful prince. Siegfried is initially betrothed to another woman, but he falls in love with Odette and promises to be true to her. However, von Rothbart tricks Siegfried into declaring his love for his own daughter, Odile, who is disguised as Odette. Siegfried realizes too late that he has been tricked, and he and Odette are unable to be together. In the end, they both die tragically, unable to escape von Rothbart's curse.

I composed and recorded this music on my friend Keith's reed organ, an instrument from the 1800's which you pump with your feet to operate.

Then I used the AI service "Nightcafe" to animate some impressionistic dream sequences to accompany each movement. This is the same as what I did in Birth of a Gorgon. I also had some help from my friend Stephen Dunn, who submitted imagery used in the third movement.

This project was part of a series Keith and I worked on together, which can be seen here.

Sheet music for this piece is available to subscribers.

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