Aurora III

1, 2+alto flute

3+CA,

3+BCl,

3+CBsn

4, 3, 3, 1

1 (5 heads), 2

Percussion 1:

‍ ‍4 tuned gongs [c3, c#3, g#3, b3], tubular bells [full 2-octave range needed], xylophone,

glockenspiel, crotales [2 octaves], marimba [4.3 octave models or more]

Percussion 2:

‍ ‍2 suspended cymbals [high / low], bass drum, large tam-tam

Concert Grand
Harp

14, 12, 10, 8, 6 (the number of musicians are exact)

This work is the latest work in the four-work cycle of Aurora. They all stemmed from the imageries of northern lights that I witnessed during my exchange to Scandinavian countries in 2019.

Each work from the series described a different facet or idea association of the northern lights, and musical language-wise, one can probably see traits of harmony and textural treatments of Sibelius, in which I found a strong bonding to Nordic landscapes.

The core ideas of the work are extremely simple – stepwise motifs in different contours: “re mi fa mi re”, and “so fa mi re”. These modal motifs hint strongly about the coldness of the land and chillness of the wind, while the perplexing rhythmic subdivision provides the stable momentum of the slow breaths. I tried overlapping multiple contrasting rhythmic characters on top of one another to shape a ground- bass-like drone structure where on top of the solid landscape, the different timbres interflow into one stretch of long fabric with the orchestra emerges and submerges asynchronously. This idea of emergence is also exemplified twice by the appearance of foreground motive on top of the thick orchestral texture, first time in the woodwind double-reed section, and second time in the brass section. Utilizing a rather simple harmonic structure, I hope the listeners would be drawn to the myriad of pairings of instruments with rhythm.