The Shadow of the Raven – Austin Haus

Austin Haus, a senior majoring in Music Performance who currently lives in Richmond, Indiana, offers an original piano composition titled “The Shadow of the Raven,” which was composed for the Richmond Civic Theatre’s Twisted Tales of Poe in Fall 2020. Nominator Professor Jessica Raposo writes that just as “Poe’s writing plays with the shadows and light of human experience, Austin’s piano piece reflects the beautiful facets of mood both despairing and hopeful.”

The Shadow of the Raven

This piece was initially inspired by Edgar Allen Poe and was composed for the production Twisted Tales of Poe which was supposed to take place in October of 2020. Unfortunately, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, there was an individual who had tested positive, and the entire event had to be cancelled. The production will have to postponed until next year. In this piece you will hear an ominous background of chromatic notes while creating the atmosphere of a Raven flying past a current fallen world. Our world. As the Raven flies it realizes that it cannot land in such a place, it flies back to where it came from, into the hands of Poe. All that is left is its shadow. This piece encompasses the countless ideas that Poe may have realized when his Raven had come back. On top of our own ideas about this current situation, his own that even the world could not keep what he had loved so dearly safe. So, has this world become, unsafe? So, what is in his shadow? Maybe you, the listener can make your own assumptions and find beauty in the darkness of this oncoming shade.