Cosmos: Colors of the Universe (2016)

written for Trio: Flute, Cello, and Piano

about the piece

Cosmos: Colors of the Universe (2016) was commissioned for the Zodiac Music Academy & Festival, a festival that is held in the Nice, France.  The piece draws on the description of an open and free environment that captures beauty and destruction of one of life’s greatest and largest tapestry: the galaxy, outer space…the cosmos. The opening of the first movement is free metered, allowing the players to see each other’s part and react in an almost fluid manner. The first movement then because this atmospheric, ethereal, and delicate environment, thus representing the colors of gases and the shimmers of the stars. The second movement, while brief, demonstrates the immediate destruction of some the greatest beauty that man has ever seen…a star’s gravitational collapse or, as most people know it: a black hole. Before the clusters of sound wipe away any trace of its existence, portions of the first movement are repeated before the density of sound dominates the former material.

World Premiered by Natasha Loomis (flute), Katie Burns (cello), and Seth Quay (piano).

Performance history

• June 18, 2017 - Boston, MA

  • Longy Divergent Workshop

• March 4, 2017 - Nacogdoches, TX

• July 14, 2016 - Côte-D'Azur Valdeblore, France

  • 4th Zodiac Music Academy & Festival