The Time Traveler

The Time Traveler is a large-scale suite for advanced wind ensemble, a "cinematic suite", inspired by both the programmatic suite of the past (The Planets, Pictures at an Exhibition, Carnival of the Animals, etc.) and the great narrative music of today film and soundtrack music. The suite tells a story and works to create sonic worlds. The extensive resources of the modern-day wind ensemble are perfectly suited for this task (especially those large percussion sections). The Time Traveler has four movements -- an overture, and then one each for past, present and future. The first movement, Everywhen, acts as the overture. It's based on which I call a "motor," a short rhythmic ostinato that is the basis for pretty much everything we hear. Every line, fragment and riff is generated by or spun off from the main ostinato. It's a groove, but a very cerebral, technical kind of groove, very light, fast movement and agile, almost scientific in nature. Remembrance, the second movement, represents the past. It's very sparse, emphasizing feelings of stillness, quiet and isolation a much slower world. It's designed to be poignant and to tweak our memory sense there are a lot of very expressive solos, including flute, trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba, a long wistful solo from the oboe, and a closing meditation by solo harp. For the present, I wanted to portray an almost overwhelming feeing of change, because, well our world is transforming at a radical pace these days, driven by an ever-advancing technology that seems to render our knowledge obsolete before we even have a chance to grow comfortable with it. Acceleration is driving by and features the percussion section, riffing mercilessly over a 7/4 meter, occasionally moving to a standard 4/4, but even then stacking up layered meters in a very disorienting fashion. The momentum in this movement never really lets up one crazy section escalates to another. Here Among the Stars is the final movement of the suite portraying the future. I decided on an optimistic version I didn't choose the dystopian outlook that seems so prevalent these days, but rather a version of the human race progressing and moving out into a larger world of outer space. It starts out with a vast emptiness and gradually introduces human motion and activity as it grows. A delicate center section featuring mallets and solo winds portrays "quantum flickers" (some sort of combination of neurons firing in your brain and quantum threads shooting across the universe). The ending holds a little surprise think of it as a "hypercoda," one step beyond what we usually think of as a coda