Composer’s Note:

Written as a Composition Fellow for the 2nd Annual Wyoming Festival-New Music in the Mountains, August 2-11, 2017, and in recognition of the full solar eclipse on Aug 21, 2017.

Carmina solis et lunae is a work that draws its inspiration from the full solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. While it shares some motivic and thematic material from a work I wrote in 2014 for the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) New Music Ensemble called Canticle of Winter, it essentially develops along the lines of a through-composed improvisation that takes the music to new places. Latin for hymn to the sun and moon, Carmina chronicles the idea of the sun and moon in a celestial dance as the moon passes in front of the sun, as seen from the earth. The music is lyrical, yet playful in nature, and the climax comes in a stoic moment as, for a brief period the two are seen as one from our vantage point on earth.