...And Then The Universe Exploded

...and then the Universe exploded is a wild and joyful piece for concert band. It was written for and dedicated to the Reinhardt Symphonic Winds, and was premiered by the ensemble on April 11, 2017. The beginning source material comes from an unrealized concept album I started back when I was writing electronic beat music, called Everything Everything All of the Time. This feeling of everything seeming to happen at once, and all the time, has not disappeared in my life; I am no stranger to fairly continuous life changes. In the first section of the piece, the musicians build layers of joy upon each other. The second section features a (very polite but bombastic) Battle of the Bands, which abruptly segues into the entire ensemble shouting a Countdown to the End of the World. In its essence, this piece is about the End of Everything. We often think of the end of things as a loss, or bittersweet at best. But sometimes, the very end is the most beautiful.