Lux Arcana  Concertnio for Flute, Guitar, and Wind Ensemble (2018)

Premiered April 26, 2018 with the Cochran Wrenn Duo and the Marlborough High School Wind Ensemble.

Program Note:

Lux Arcana was composed for the Cochran Wrenn Duo and the Marlborough High School Wind Ensemble and involved close collaboration with the students of the Wind Ensemble. In one of the in-class sessions led by the Duo, the students composed melodies and rhythms, which I incorporated into the piece. The bass line of the first movement, Passacaglia, is a hybrid of two melodies the students composed. The second movement, Toccata, assembles together several fragments of the students' rhythms in addition to further developing their melodic material.

The Passacaglia is a grand, unfolding, dramatic opening that builds in intensity and tension. The Toccata bursts out of the passacaglia, as if turning a page in a novel and learning of new characters central to the story. But in this piece, even these new characters carry with them traits of the previous movement’s music.

The first movement is a prologue to the second, in which the musical ideas born from the passacaglia theme interact and develop, coming to fruition and fulfilling their potential. A climax is reached in the Toccata when the passacaglia returns underneath one of these new ideas, which brings about a dramatic and fiery conclusion where the motives of the Toccata confidently have the last word in a virtuosic flourish.