Perusal score only - please contact me at alice.y.hong@gmail.com for score and parts!
For full orchestra
4(pic)33(bcl)4(cbn)/4331/timp.3perc/hp/str
Original composition by Alice Hong
2026
Length - 5:30
Written for and premiered by the 2026 GMEA All-State 11/12 Full Orchestra
Scintillate explores the idea of light in motion: how a single point of brilliance can multiply, refract, and ultimately saturate the space around it. The piece begins with small gestures of light, driven by oscillating and repeating rhythmic figures. What starts as delicate motion gradually grows in density and breadth, expanding outward in waves. As the orchestral texture thickens, the spark remains embedded within the fabric of the music, driving the piece toward an expansive, luminous culmination.
For violin, cello and piano
Commissioned by ensemblevim
2024
Original composition by Alice Hong
Score and parts included
Based on a poem by Maggie Smith:
Good Bones
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
For violin and piano
Commissioned by Toronto Summer Music
2021
Original composition by Alice Hong
Score and parts included
For string quartet
Original composition by Alice Hong
2025
Length - 9:00
Written for Toronto Summer Music, in honour of Jonathan Crow
Anyone Can Cook comes from a place of celebration: celebrating the wonderful tenure of Jonathan Crow as the Music Director of Toronto Summer Music from 2016 - 2025, Toronto Summer Music marking their 20th anniversary, and the strong community that TSM has cultivated surrounding and embracing classical music and incredible musical talent.
But the piece also comes from a very personal and sentimental memory of mine: when I walked into a violin lesson with Jonathan, then a first-year student pursuing her doctorate, just one week before my first doctoral recital. When he asked how I was doing, I burst into tears from the stress I was feeling. In response, instead of focusing on the impending recital, Jonathan sent two tickets to Ratatouille in Concert with the Toronto Symphony.
For me, these tickets were a sweet reminder that in music, despite all of the necessary hours and focus needed to pursue this career, we are allowed to take time for mental and emotional health. This was a message no teacher had ever relayed to me before Jonathan, and now it is always something I remind my own students, colleagues, and myself. I will always be grateful for that anecdote.
So, in honour of Jonathan, TSM and Ratatouille, I hope Anyone Can Cook brings a smile to your face and reminds you to always take some time for yourself.
Perusal score only - please contact me for score and parts!
For solo violin and full orchestra
2(afl)+pic122 / 222 / 2perc / hp.pf.cel / str
Original composition by Alice Hong
2013 rev. 2018
Length - 7:00
Read and performed by Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Niagara Symphony Orchestra, Georgian Bay Orchestra, and Amersfoort Youth Orchestra
"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise." - Miguel de Cervantes.
Perusal score only - please contact me for score and parts!
For solo violin and full orchestra
2(pic)122 / 2221 / 2perc / hp.pf.cel / str
violin
Original composition by Alice Hong
2023
Length - 9:00
Commissioned by the Georgia Tech Symphony Orchestra
"The phoenix hope, can wing her way through the desert skies, and still defying fortune's spite; revive from ashes and rise." - Miguel de Cervantes.
Perusal score only - please contact me at alice.y.hong@gmail.com for score and parts!
For full orchestra
2(pic)122 / 2221 / 3perc / hp.pf / str
Original composition by Alice Hong
2023
Length - 12:00
Written for and premired by the Georgia Tech Symphony Orchestra
LANDFALL is a reflection on the Asian experience in the face of rising hate and discrimination due to misinformation related to COVID-19. Rooted in the belief that compassion can be a form of resistance, this piece explores how empathy, solidarity, and pride in one’s heritage can triumph over fear and prejudice. Through moments of quiet strength and hope leading to bold defiance, LANDFALL is both a personal and collective statement, that no matter how loud the hate becomes, the power of unity and care will always speak louder.
Perusal score only - please contact me at alice.y.hong@gmail.com for score and parts!
For full orchestra
2(pic)13(bcl)3(cbn) / 2221 / timp.3perc / hp.pf.cel / str
Original composition by Alice Hong
2025
Length - 11:00
Written for and premiered by the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra
What an honor it is to write a piece for the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, the youth orchestra that gave me countless cherished memories, life-long friendships, and the conviction to pursue a life of music.
Working on Eden gave me an opportunity to step back in the shoes of my high school self, looking forward all week to Saturday morning ASYO rehearsals in Atlanta Symphony Hall and getting a glimpse of what life was like to live and breathe music.
During my first year as a violinist in the ASYO, I was enrolled in AP Language, taught by Kelly Bryan at Walton High School. One of our assignments was an open-format project on "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, an epic about the book of Genesis from the Bible, and the exile of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. For my project, I decided to compose a piece based on the epic. Over a decade later, I felt that it was fitting to take the theme I had written for "Paradise Lost" and give it life again. After all, ASYO was my paradise, my Eden.
And while I can't say that paradise has been lost after moving on beyond youth orchestra, I will always embrace my youth orchestra memories as a time of purest joy.
And thank you to the Atlanta Chamber Players and the judges of the Rapido! Cycle 7 Composition Contest - Jennifer Higdon, Michael Gandolfi, Gaetan Le Divelec, and Brian Raphael Nabors - for entrusting me with this work.
For piano quartet
Original composition by Alice Hong
2024
Length - 6:00
Written for the Rapido! Composition Contest 2024
Pop! is a play on the traditional American song “Pop! Goes The Weasel” and a traditional ritual tune of the Lakota Native American tribe. Whether one believes the song is a playful children’s tune or a fun dance for adults from the 1850s, the meaning behind the lyrics of the songs is often debated. One general theme shared throughout the verses is money and work: in order to afford what is needed in life, one needs to constantly work, work, work. If not - pop! goes the weasel. While Americans were focused on the corporate grind, the Lakota Native American tribe endeavored to forge a deep and meaningful connection with nature. The ritual tune quoted in Pop! was played on the lakota flute in order to bless and ask for protection for the land on which they lived around the same time “Pop! Goes The Weasel” was composed and popularized.
In modern America, many find themselves still ensnared in the relentless cycle of constant work. Many long for a deeper connection with nature, something the Lakota Native American tribe have long understood. The conclusion of Pop! brings together both themes to illustrate this yearning while struggling to escape the frenetic, ruthless - but thrilling! - modern American rat race.
For two violins and piano
Commissioned by ensemble vim
2024
Original composition by Alice Hong
Score and parts included
Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.
- Maggie Smith “Good Bones”, 2016
Commissioned by Lövstabruks Kammarmusikfestival
2020
For violin, viola, and piano
Original composition by Alice Hong
Sheet music, digital PDF
Score and parts included
Without skill but with strength
you lifted me out of my grief—
Utterly calm
as one who knew
that to snatch a thing up
allows little bits
to drop away
Poem by Johanna Ekström
For violin and piano
Original composition by Alice Hong
Sheet music, digital pdf
Score and violin part included
Sepia
Purchase sheet music here
2015
For Violin and Piano
Duration: 9:00
Alice Hong, violin
Benjamin Smith, piano
Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes – like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night – little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the composition of my memories. - C. S. Lewis
Sepia traces the slow unraveling of a memory - how something once innocent and clear can become altered beyond recognition, yet still linger in fragments. Borrowing from the opening phrase of Cinderella’s “Someday My Prince Will Come,” the piece begins with a melody that is simple, familiar, and untouched.
But as the work unfolds, that theme is gradually pulled apart, warped, and transformed through increasingly sorrowful iterations, as though time and grief have stained it beyond repair. In photographic terms, sepia refers to the brownish tint of aging monochrome photographs - images that remain visible, but forever changed by time. In the same way, the borrowed tune in Sepia becomes discolored by memory: still present, but harder and harder to recognize as it slips further from its original form.
Near the end, the theme returns one final time in its pure state - a fleeting glimpse of what once was - before quietly dissolving for good with the cuckoo of the cuckoo clock indicating the passing of time.
CD track in .aif format
Purchase the corresponding sheet music here.
Original composition by Alice Hong
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