silver glass / swift sunrise

Program Note

I wrote silver glass / swift sunrise before I titled it. The piece emerged from a desire to write a “sparkly” orchestral piece. I began with two textures. The first was a cloudy, crystalline section with a flurry of flute double tonguing at its center; the second was an angular intervallic section inspired by Benjamin Britten’s Sunday Morning from Peter Grimes.

It was these two textures that were on my mind when I sought a title. Ultimately, I decided to borrow a line from Tolkien’s Return of the King:

. . . the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

NB: A version of this piece for wind band is currently in progress.