Towards the end of Winter quarter of my senior year, the UC San Diego Admissions team reached out to me asking if I could write a version of Hans Zimmer’s “Interstellar Main Theme” for piano and violin for an Instagram reels video showcasing the UCSD music department. Although admittedly never having watched the film, I had heard the theme many times before when it would come up in conversation with friends and family. I could hear the original theme in my head right away, comprised of a simple structure which Hans Zimmer orchestrated brilliantly. I responded with interest right away, and was connected with Violinist Ashley Mok and Recording Engineer/Artist Guy LaBorde, who would later become my good friends by the end of the year.

Despite being quite busy with preparing recital repertoire and other projects for the end of the quarter/year, I had almost automatically transcribed an arpeggiated figure in my head for piano alongside a simple violin accompaniment. With a bit of elaboration and editing, I had a draft finished by the end of the day on MuseScore. My goal was to write a piano part which would be easy for me to play, but presumably quite difficult to learn and execute with a different set of strengths and weaknesses in technique.

Soon after that, Guy, Ashley, the UCSD Admissions social media staff, and I scheduled a studio recording date. Being the instrumentalists, Ashley and I showed up an hour early to practice the piece since we had never played with each other before, which ended up being overkill as things went really smoothly. We changed some of each other’s lines for fun and improvised a neat little ending, and all of it played out quite naturally all the way through the recording session! Guy set everything up for us and mixed the audio with us afterwards too, so big props to him for running things so smoothly as a one-man team :)