As a composer, it is my mission to create an opportunity for performers to be more than themselves. The act of composing music provides the same opportunity for me and all who listen: to be drawn into that powerful source of creative energy which is central to all living things as the sun – to feel that intense heat, that irresistible gravity, that uninhibited presence MAGNIFIED. Alas, it is one thing to sense it, and quite another thing to express it.
The poet Rilke speaks of mirrors in nature. Mirrors give back EVERYTHING they receive and they receive EVERYTHING. Total expenditure and total renewal all at once, without regret. Selfless, timeless, infinite. We, always on the other hand, find it very difficult to endure this process without regret. For us, it is EITHER receiving or giving, living or dying, one or the other, left or right, yes or no. We are too unwilling, stubborn, even selfish, to cross the line and change direction.
Rilke believed that for us there is a single moment when this transformation does occur, whether we accept it or not. Approaching this moment, tension builds and builds until it reaches a critical mass and suddenly – all of this compressed energy bursts out into a vast explosion of intricate abundance: GONG!! This is the sound of creation - the moment when all that is amassed through the senses becomes a total release. One can fear this process or one can celebrate it. Both are necessary.
I have named this two-movement percussion duo “Sundogs.” Sundogs, also known as “mock suns,” are a dazzling meteorological phenomena in which two luminous diamond-shaped spots appear on either side of the sun when its rays shine through ice crystals floating in the air during cold winter months. Some say they’re shaped like dogs leaping through a ring of flames. Commissioned by Eric and Stacey Jones (a.k.a. EQUAL TEMPERAMENT), I have given them an opportunity to test themselves as individual virtuosi as well as their abilities to complement each other as a duo: both are mirrors of the sun as well as each other. GONG! GONG!! GONG!!!
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