Dune Aurora

COMPOSER'S NOTE

This ComMission Possible project bgean with fifteen ideas that students formulated for me, including historical events, mythic settings, abstract experiences, and natural phenomena. I could only choose one idea, which was difficult because every idea I was given made me think. So I bent the rules alittle and selected two ideas. I selected the ideas of "Northern Lights" and "Sounds of Nature" (thanks, Brynlyn, Kenley, and Mason) because, in combination, these ideas pushed each other beyond my inital, isolated interpretations.

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The Northern Lights don't produce sounds like the ones we hear in a forest, but they do emit low-frequency radio waves. They also expand our conception of the natural world to include the cosmos. This seems fair, since we are made of star dust after all.

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As I read more about the Northern Lights, I discovered the piece's namesake. Dune auroras were first observed by Finnish citizen scientists in 2016. Their existence was officially reported in 2020 and confirmed the following year. Consisting of regularly spaced, parallel stripes of brighter emissions within the green diffuse aurora, dune auroras have an appearance similar to the wind-driven landforms found in desert and coastal environments. It's a great name—a gritty terrestrial form mapped onto the luminous sky. It offered me a new structure toimagine and adifferent compositional model. Bright patterns throughout the expanses encouraged me to give greater attention to ambient texture rather than structuring my work around a developing motif. Color and timbre distributed throughout the ensemble make melody less a line and more an extended field. I wanted to engulf the listeners in a warm body of texture and timbre, something that would reflect the inspiring and extraordinary beauty of the dune auroras themselves.

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ComMission Possible Members include:

Baldwin-Woodville High School Band; Baldwin, WI - Adam Bassak | Clinton High School Band; Clinton, TN - Matthew Bimstein | Dr. E Alma Flagg School Concert Band; Newark, NJ - Jordan Peters | Evanston Township High School Wind Symphony; Evanston, IL - Matthew Bufis | Frederick County Middle School Symphonic Band; Winchester, VA - Greg Abell | Glacier Creek Middle School Bands; Cross Plains, WI - Anne Vanderbloemen & Cody Nichols | Green Bay West High School; Green Bay, WI - Danielle Scherer | Hauser Wind Ensemble; Riverside, IL - Brad Meyer & Alec Fenne | Jacob Klingbeil | Jacobsen Middle School Intermediate/Advanced Band; Tehachapi, CA - Lisa McKim-Hill | Kasson-Mantorville Band Program; Kasson, MN - Anthony Boldt, Elizabeth Harwood, Sarah Vinzant | Libertyville High School Band; Libertyville, IL - Dustin Helvie | Matthews Middle School Bands; Island Lake, IL - Alex Rivera adn Angela Andolfi | McCracken Middle School Symphonic Band; Skokie, IL - Chip De Stafano | McCutcheon High School Bands; Lafayette, IN - Kristin Lin | Norris Middle School Bands' Bakersfield, CA - Jared Dalgleish | Oregon Middle School Band; Oregon, WI - Kati Seiter, Pat Dorn, Matthew Cornale | Platteville School District Bands; Platteville, WI - Sophie Steger & Kevin Cooley | Prairie Farms Bands; Prairie Farm, WI - Zachary Bartsch | Robert Gray Middle School Concert Band; Portland, OR - Julie Miller | James W. Robinson Secondary School Middle School Bands; Fairfax, VA - Tiffany Hitz | Scoggins Middle School Wind Ensemble; McKinney, TX - Adam Davis | South Forsyth Middle School Bands; Cumming, GA - Andrew Poor | Traughber JHS Symphonic Band; Oswego, IL - Rachel Maxwell | Wauconda Middle School Bands; Wauconda, IL - Andrew Hunter | West Fargo High School Symphonic Band; West Fargo, ND - Dan Christianson

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