Soar!

Soar! is an orchestral tone poem commissioned by Julie Morris, host of the 2015 District 2, 3, and 5 Orchestra Festival of the Pennsylvania Music Educators' Association. This work was inspired by two very different, yet remarkably similar experiencesthe creative process and flight. For me as a composer, the creative process is one of extreme ups and downs, peaks and valleys, and the piece that I was composing before writing Soar! had, what felt like at the time, the most extremes of these emotions. When what I was thinking worked, it felt so unbelievably freeinglike I could fly; but, when things did not work, it felt very heavyalmost grounding. During this time I was traveling a lot, most of which was flying. I remember getting on a plane right after I had written something that felt amazing and thinking as we took off, that these two feelings are so similar and that I felt like I was soaring from both experiences. I wanted to try to capture that in the orchestra and Soar! was born.