The Sith Rises (by Justus Becker, with Scurvy Rickets)
Featured on the album Carnage Carnival.
Justus Becker is my partner’s oldest son, now a senior in high school. He wrote this piece, "The Sith Rises", on the piano back in 2020. He has a gift for writing beautiful, cinematic (and dramatic) music on the piano.
During the pandemic, I got my feet wet arranging music for the orchestra and this song was my first project working with all the sections of the orchestra. It’s one of my favorite memories of 2020, sitting at the computer with Justus, working out musical decisions about which instrument to use for which part, what register it should be in, and what the story of the song was saying at each moment.
He is of course a huge Star Wars fan, and this piece strongly evokes a scene in that world. A scene half-imagined and half based on real lore of Anakin’s journey to the dark side. It expresses emotional conflict, temptation, personal turmoil, and eventually succumbing to the dark side.
It still blows my mind that he wrote this piece at that age, and with what limited experience he had on the piano at the time. (You should hear what he’s written lately!) Give it a listen and let yourself picture a scene where the dark side wins…for today.
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