Wearing White is a forty-five minute chamber opera in one act. There are five characters: two sopranos (Woman and Other Woman), a mezzo-soprano (Best Friend), a tenor (Man), and a baritone (Brother). The accompanying ensemble consists of flute/piccolo, clarinet, horn, trumpet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, and cello. The opera is in six sections: Prelude, Scene 1, Interlude 1, Scene 2, Interlude 2, and Scene 3.
The libretto, written by the composer, tells the story of a woman and her departure from reality when she is left by the man she loves. Each scene is a combination of the memories and imagination of the main character, Woman. She speaks in a nonsense language that only she and her lover, Man, can understand. As the opera develops, her communication skills deteriorate until Brother and Best Friend place her in psychiatric care. The nonsense syllables that have been chosen for Woman's text reflect her intended meaning and mood. For example, at the end of Scene 2, when Woman is upset and frustrated, there are frequent hard and/or plosive consonants. When she is blissful, on the other hand, there are open vowels, glides, and nasal consonants.
There is also a recurring melodic idea tied to the plot of Wearing White. In each scene, there is at least one phone call between Man and Other Woman. The first occurrence of the ringing phone is in the Prelude, represented by the marimba playing an octatonic melody with an F pitch center. Each subsequent call is a variation of the initial one, always in an octatonic pattern. Conversations that take place on the phone, or reference a previous phone conversation, use the same pitch center and octatonic scale. The ringing phone becomes a negative trigger for Woman, who reacts aggressively while hearing it in the final scene.
The harmonic language is based on the vertical orchestration of horizontal melodies and uses pitches from adjacent pulses as suspended or anticipated dissonances. Each interlude acts as a large transition, changing the mood based on melodic fragments from preceding and subsequent scenes. The interludes also shift the harmonic focus from one scene to the next.