Rainlight

MIDI excerpt

Perusal scores are downloadable and viewable but not printable.

Instrumentation: Orchestra

Duration: ca. 8 minutes 30 seconds

Year composed: 2020

Place composed: Kansas City, Missouri

Awards: Honorable Mention, 2022 Missouri Composers Project

Program Notes:
I have always loved rain, and I love seeing the interplay of rain and light. Rainlight is a musical painting, evoking the ways light shimmers and reflects and dances in rain, especially at night. It begins peacefully, with hushed strings and harp and shifting musical colors. The primary theme is introduced by all the violins playing in unison. A second theme is played by the oboe. The wind begins picking up as woodwinds play short runs and whip about. The low brass and strings gather the forces of the wind and the rain, and drums bring thunder nearer and nearer, until the full orchestra builds to an enormous thunderclap at the climax of the piece. Following the thunderclap the full brass section plays an extended version of the second theme. As calm returns, the horns reprise the original theme, and while the rain fades to a drizzle and a mist, the strings slowly fade to silence.

Rainlight was written in 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. I wanted to write something pretty, something beautiful to listen to, as my composition to come out of this time. Amid worldwide suffering and the battle against an invisible yet deadly enemy, music provided much-needed solace and comfort, and I wanted to add my voice to that chorus.