Instrumentation: Concert Band
Duration: 20’00”
Performances:
- The Hartt School Wind Ensemble
October 2014
Millard Auditorium, The University of Hartford
West Hartford, CT
Program Note:
Formations, is a celebration of the cosmos; a celebration of the tiniest of particles to the largest galaxies and everything in between. Since I was a child I’ve looked up at the sky and seen a world full of wonder, beauty, and mystery. The same wonder that filled my heart when I was in elementary school still takes hold when I look up now, decades later.
I chose the formation of things for a specific reason. When I was a kid I had a habit of asking my parents where everything came from. It wasn’t enough that a star was there, I needed to know how it got there and if possible why it was there. As I grew up I developed an immense appetite for almost all things science and history and with that came some of the answers I needed. The reality of how these things came to be was so much more interesting and astounding than my imagination that all these years later I am still captivated by the idea of an exploding star or the Big Bang.
So lets take a journey, you and I. First we’ll see the death of an immense star and watch as its own gravity rips it apart and forms a black hole. We’ll see it feed on matter and light around it until it too finally dies. Next we’ll go back 13.7 billion years and watch as tiny particles dance in and out of existence in the endless nothingness that once was. We’ll see one of these tiny bits expand in an instant and give rise to everything that ever has been or will be. Watch hydrogen form and gravity pull it into the first stars. Those stars will form galaxies and we’ll see glimpses of the Universe as it exists now. Finally, we will travel to the end of time, a trillion years or more into the future. There we will witness the dissipation of the galaxies, the death of stars, and the final moments as even tiny electrons are pulled apart into the nothing from which we all came. Parts of this piece are violent, but we will see that at the end of time, the formation of nothing is just as beautiful as the formation of a star. Everything has its time and everything ends.
I. … from Death
Millions of light years away a star enters its death-throws! Over the course of thousands of years the star expands until it finally collapses under the immense pull of its own gravity. From there it dances with every piece of matter that comes near, dancing with every particle of matter or light and absorbing them all over the course of billions of years. Finally, the dance stops and the black hole ends its life in the same violent manner with which it started.
II. … from Nothing
13.7 billion years in the past a tiny piece of matter “explodes” giving life to space-time, the very fabric of our universe. From there hydrogen forms, and stars and galaxies after that. Finally, Earth and the solar system come to life and we catch a glimpse of humanities daring trips to the moon and hopefully beyond. The movement ends with a quotation of Jerry Goldsmith’s “Fate” theme from the Star Trek franchise. This quotation is a symbol that the universe is good and beautiful.
III. … from Everything
A trillion years in the future the universe is dying. The stars have no more fuel and over the course of billions of years they all die, and gravity is no longer strong enough for new stars to be born. The galaxies dissipate and planets crumble as the universe too finally dies. The world ends slowly and methodically, not with a cataclysmic explosion, but with a beautiful exit to parts unknown.