What It Could Be with Hope and Joy

What It Could Be with Hope and Joy, Spencer Arias (2025) 11'for tenor saxophone and piano Joy - the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune, or by the prospect of possessing what one desires “What It Could Be with Hope and Joy” was written in response to a prompt to write music about the emotion of Joy for Marie Humburger as part of her graduate work of commissioning new works based around various emotions. In 2024, the world, particularly mine, was one with not very much Joy. I had initially felt little motivation to write music about an emotion I wasn’t feeling. Instead, I decided to make my piece about joy at the expense of others. As a Gay Jewish person, I have become much more aware of how these two communities are used as scapegoats (regardless of viewpoints), and this often leads to rights being taken away because other communities feel threatened by our existence, and the only way that they can feel secure, which leads to a false sense of joy, is by blaming someo