The seasons and the constellations

The seasons and the constellations is another of my "bulb" series of pieces (others include Winter aconites and Lesser celandines). It is for chorus (SATB) and electronic sound and was commissioned by The Dale Warland Singers in 2003.

The seasons and the constellations is one of a series of works in which I used the consonant portions of human speech to shape the timing of the chords in the electronic part. This creates rhythms that are natural sounding, but unpredictable: to me, they are reminiscent of the patterns formed by wildflowers in a field, or stars scattered in the sky. The chorus is wordless, singing sustained vowels that hold the chords of the tape part together, like beads on a string. The title is a line from T. S. Eliot, that invokes not only the star-like patterns in the tape part, but also the progression of the music through time, which seemed to me to echo the progression of the seasons of the year.

The seasons and the constellations was commissioned by The Dale Warland Singers. It was written mostly while in residence at The MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire in the winter of 2003.