Aurora Australis

Score
YouTube Video of Live Performance by the Wind Ensemble of the Netherlands and me & Dagmar Uythethofken on the piano

Summary:
Entry in the JongNBE "On the way to the New Year's Concert" composition competition 2007 for people under 18. This year's theme was "Night", and as such I chose the subject "Aurora Australis", better known as the Southern Lights. The fast outer sections represent the wonder of the continuous collision of particles in the Earth's athmosphere, the slow mid-section represents the wonderment it creates.

It's scored for flute, oboe, Bb clarinet, alto saxophone, bassoon, trumpet in Bb, horn in F, tenor trombone, percussion (susp. cymbal + xylophone), four-hand piano, double bass & tape.

The overall style can be summarized as impressionistic minalism gone horribly hyperactive. I regarded the whole ensemble as an "aura apparatus" in the fast outer sections.

It came to win a place in the final round.

Techniques used:

• Polyrhythms
• Ostinati
• Polychords
• Combined use of samples and live ensemble
• "Prepared" piano
• Instrumentists have to hum and speak
• Harmonic parallelisms

Duration of conception:
About three whole days to think about structure, improvising on the piano and making the whole score on Sibelius. Lay-out improvements and dynamic markings took about a week

Structure:
intro - A - B - A' - outtro

Obstacles when composing:
confining my ideas and keeping the structure

I listened to this, and it was everything I expected. I think you captured the mood very well. I'm sorry I can't post a better comment, because I'm on my Wii.

Great job, though.

Thanks, any comment's a good comment to me.
And my only intention of posting my compositions is that others can enjoy them (if possible )

Originally Posted by Tulipso

Thanks, any comment's a good comment to me.
And my only intention of posting my compositions is that others can enjoy them (if possible )

Hey, funny to see you here. I also participated in the JongNBE contest (Regio zuid)! Great to see you here, and a very interesting piece of music. You went to the second round didn't you?

Originally Posted by Steven

Hey, funny to see you here. I also participated in the JongNBE contest (Regio zuid)! Great to see you here, and a very interesting piece of music. You went to the second round didn't you?

I even made it to the finals. Luck was on my side, I guess.
Which piece did you write for the contest?

Originally Posted by Tulipso

I even made it to the finals. Luck was on my side, I guess.
Which piece did you write for the contest?

Well, your piece is very cool, so it wasn't only luck I guess. You can find my piece on this site and the recording when you search for 'Completorium' on this forum. The live version is quite bad, lots of mistakes, though it went pretty good during the rehearsels. Especially the trumpet-player makes looooots of mistakes. Nonetheless, it was fun!