Inspired by a trip to Disneyland, Aerodynamics describes an imaginary flight on an open-air glider. When I was in college I went on a new ride at the California Adventure theme park called "Soarin' California" during which I was suspended in the air with my legs dangling as if I were in a hang glider. I was immersed in imagery of California landscapes that zoomed by as fans blew air at me to simulate incredible speed. Even the scent of pine forests wafted through the breeze to complete the experience. This ride was so visceral and powerful to me that I went on it over and over, taking it in with excitement every time. I am fascinated by high speeds and by flight, and Aerodynamics is my musical response to these visceral experiences. Musically, Aerodynamics is focused on the ebb and flow of fluid gestures, connected by a continuous stream of quickly repeated notes that represents the wind blowing at your face. Every line is echoed and mirrored so that a simple idea expands into a wash of sound. The listener may imagine taking flight throughout the piece, dipping and swooping as the shape of the music weaves its way from high to low and from small to large. This work uses a very limited amount of material, consisting almost entirely of a repetitive two note motive and a fleeting melody. The constant underlying motion builds the energy toward the end of the piece, where a climax combines the two main musical ideas in a majestic orchestral tutti.

The orchestral performance in this set is a live recording of the Florida State University Philharmonia, Alexandra Dee conducting (http://www.alexandradee.com), February 16, 2013

The wind ensemble performance in this set is a live recording of the CCM Wind Symphony, Rodney Winther conducting, October 20, 2010

for more information, please visit http://www.rogerzare.com/aero.htm

Aerodynamics

Wind Ensemble

LHC for clarinet quartet by Roger Zare
1. Continuum
2. Quarks (begins at 4:41)
3. 4 TeV (begins at 7:55)
4. Higgs Boson (begins at 10:31)

Clarinet Quartet Premiere by 10th and Broadway (http://www.10thandbroadway.com/)

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider), is a particle accelerator built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva Switzerland. It is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built, allowing scientists to probe more deeply the inner-workings of matter and energy. I have always been interested in science and I was excited when I first heard about the LHC's development.

The first movement, Continuum, envisions the ether of space-time, a vast expanse with harmonies fading into and out of focus. A melodic line is passed around the ensemble and the movement ends, fading into a single held note, which proceeds into the second movement without pause. Quarks, the title of the second movement, refers to the smallest building blocks of all matter. There are six different flavors of quarks, organized into three pairs. This symmetry is reflected in the music as pairs of saxophones poke in and out of the fabric, always in contrary motion.

The third movement, 4 TeV (tera electron volts), represents the power of each beam of the LHC during 2012, when this work was written. Key clicks, passed around the ensemble, represent the massive machine revving up its energy. Another idea, stated in imitation, leads to an acceleration into the fourth movement.

The final movement is named after the Higgs Boson, otherwise known as the "God particle." The LHC was built in order to confirm or disprove the existence of this particle that gives all other particles mass. On July 4, 2012, in the middle of my work on this piece, CERN announced that they had found the Higgs Boson after years of accumulating data. The music consists of repeated triumphant chords, morphing from one to another, celebrating this momentous discovery. All three previous movements are referenced, and the work ends with a reprise of the ethereal opening movement, this time fading away into silence.

More information at www.rogerzare.com/lhc.htm

LHC For Clarinet Quartet

EDGES is inspired by several events in my life over the period of 1995-97.  Two are near-death experiences, while the third is the sudden passing of one of my closest colleagues and best friends, Professor Robert Cooper.  

The first movement, "BACK FROM THE EDGE", is a chronicle of the battle that I waged with "flesh-eating strep", which nearly cost me my life in spring, 1995.  A fragment of a line from French playwright Jean Genet’s “Prisoner of Love” served as additional inspiration: 

 “perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges from where it lay in memory, inaudible as a melody cut in a disc of flesh.  A composer lets me hear a song that has always been shut up silent within me.”

In a sense, my life has re-emerged from where it lay, for a while, silent, in memory.

Movement II, "POSTCARDS", is inspired by my mentor and friend, composer Donald Erb, who had his own near-death experience about a year later in the same Ithaca, New York hospital (a bizarre coincidence).  I know that he shared many of the mental aberrations I experienced during the recovery process, and POSTCARDS reflects the strange visions, the elusive but more and more frequent moments of clarity, and the eventual return to reality that such experiences create.  For me, in retrospect, these thoughts were like vivid postcards of other realities, sent to me by another part of my mind and filtered through the pain, the fear, and the medications that I had been given.  There was also a highly obsessive quality to my thoughts during the reco-very, which is reflected in the primary melodic material which simply refuses to disappear, though it changes colors, dynamics, and tempos at every turn.

Postcards -- real postcards, that is -- also played a role in my experiences.  While recovering, I received a post card (often of questionable taste) every two or three days from Don.  When it was his turn to be in recovery, it was my turn to send him postcards (equally questionable)...they seem now to me to be a lifeline to reality from people who are eager to welcome us back.

A quote was inspirational for this second movement as well, this time from Hermann Hesse’s Damien:

“In each individual the spirit is made flesh, in each one the whole of creation suffers, in each one a Savior is crucified.”

The final movement is a reflection on the amazing, wonderful, and sometimes difficult life of my colleague, Robert Cooper.  Robert had, without a doubt, the speediest metabolism of anyone I have ever known.  Lunch with Robert could be defined as both of us eating for the first five minutes and Robert watching me finish eating for the last 45.  Robert had two computers in his office and a phone; often all three were busy at once, while he carried on at least one additional conversation with whomever was present.  Yet Robert had great depth too.  He was a living example to students and colleagues, especially in facing life’s travails with courage and conviction.  He was also funny as hell.  I suppose that Robert’s pace was impossible to sustain, and in fact he died suddenly at age 45 on September 18, 1997. 

No quotations needed with this movement.  This one’s for you, man.


EDGES Movement III OhMan for wind ensemble

EDGES Movement II Postcards for wind ensemble

EDGES Movement I Back from the Edge for wind ensemble

Performance by the Senzoku New Philharmonic Orchestra, directed by Masui Nobutaka. April 15, 2015 in Tokyo, Japan. Tectonics won first prize in the 3rd Senzoku Contemporary Composition Competition. For more information, please visit http://www.rogerzare.com/tectonics.htm

Tectonics refers to a field within geology that studies the structures within the earth's crust. Probably the most familiar area within tectonics is the study of plate tectonics, which describes how massive plates within the crust interact to create ocean beds, mountain ranges, continents, volcanoes, and earthquakes. The inspiration behind this work is the concept of continental drift, referring to the gradual motion of tectonic plates that resulted in the breakup of the original landmass, Pangaea, into what we now know as 7 continents. I am awed by the incredible size and power represented by this tectonic motion.

Opening mysteriously with a pulsating low C sharp, the music gradually builds to an earthy tuba solo, with tension growing as each pulsation begins. This pulsation represents the inevitability and enormity of tectonic processes. Rustling tremolo strings lead a very gradual ascending gesture that, at its apex, reveals a chorale and a flowing melody in the winds and strings. A truncated return of the chorale in the strings is punctuated with bass drum and brass, until the music reaches another high point. The ensuing section of music is much more delicate and ethereal, with the pulsation now carried by bowed crotales over sustained string harmonics, as if the listener were now looking down from the peak of a mountain ridge that was just thrust upward by the earth. Solos in a variety of instruments are accompanied by muted trumpets. 

As the ever-building tension mounts yet again, the pulsation returns to the low brass while the intricacy of the counterpoint expands across the ensemble. The music reenters the geological workings of the earth's crust, exploring a newly pronounced momentum. Finally, in a cataclysmic blow, as when two plates grind against each other to produce an earthquake, the piece reaches its climax, with all of the low brass taking on what is now a pulsating C natural. Multiple layers expand above the immense power of the orchestral bass, with the strings returning to an augmented version of the chorale, and the brass proceeding at a different rate altogether. The three divisions of the orchestra collide indiscriminately, representing the gradual and unstoppable motion of the earth's tectonic plates. After a return to the sweeping melody, the piece ends with the strings screaming away chaotically as the rest of the ensemble comes smashing down.

Tectonics for orchestra

Excerpts of orchestral works by Roger Zare
1. Green Flash - http://www.rogerzare.com/greenflash.htm
A green flash is an atmospheric phenomenon that, when conditions are perfect, is sometimes seen during a sunset. This work describes a series of atmospheric images from sunrise to sunset.
2. Aerodynamics - http://www.rogerzare.com/aero.htm
Inspired by a ride at Disney, Aerodynamics is a work about free flight. The high velocity of notes represents the wind blowing in your face as you swoop and dive in all directions over a vast and majestic landscape.
3. Tectonics - http://www.rogerzare.com/tectonics.htm
This work is about the immensely powerful processes of the earth's plate tectonics, where landmasses move at an incredibly slow pace, but with such unstoppable momentum to create mountains, earthquakes, and volcanoes.

Green Flash, Aerodynamics, Tectonics (excerpts)

LHC for saxophone quartet by Roger Zare
1. Continuum
2. Quarks (begins at 4:39)
3. 4 TeV (begins at 7:55)
4. Higgs Boson (begins at 10:15)

Premiere by the Donald Sinta Quartet (http://www.donaldsintaquartet.com/)

The LHC (Large Hadron Collider), is a particle accelerator built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva Switzerland. It is the largest and most powerful particle accelerator ever built, allowing scientists to probe more deeply the inner-workings of matter and energy. I have always been interested in science and I was excited when I first heard about the LHC's development. 

The first movement, Continuum, envisions the ether of space-time, a vast expanse with harmonies fading into and out of focus. A melodic line is passed around the ensemble and the movement ends, fading into a single held note, which proceeds into the second movement without pause. Quarks, the title of the second movement, refers to the smallest building blocks of all matter. There are six different flavors of quarks, organized into three pairs. This symmetry is reflected in the music as pairs of saxophones poke in and out of the fabric, always in contrary motion. 

The third movement, 4 TeV (tera electron volts), represents the power of each beam of the LHC during 2012, when this work was written. Key clicks, passed around the ensemble, represent the massive machine revving up its energy. Another idea, stated in imitation, leads to an acceleration into the fourth movement. 

The final movement is named after the Higgs Boson, otherwise known as the "God particle." The LHC was built in order to confirm or disprove the existence of this particle that gives all other particles mass. On July 4, 2012, in the middle of my work on this piece, CERN announced that they had found the Higgs Boson after years of accumulating data. The music consists of repeated triumphant chords, morphing from one to another, celebrating this momentous discovery. All three previous movements are referenced, and the work ends with a reprise of the ethereal opening movement, this time fading away into silence.

More information at http://www.rogerzare.com/lhc.htm

Zare - LHC for saxophone quartet

Aerodynamics for orchestra (FSU Philharmonia, Alexandra Dee conducting)

Aerodynamics for wind ensemble (CCM Wind Symphony, Rodney Winther conducting)

Performed by the Sioux City Symphony brass and percussion, Ryan Haskins conducting.

This fast and energetic fanfare was composed for Ryan Haskins and the Sioux City Symphony and premiered on November 17, 2012. The title refers to the associations I have between certain harmonies that I use in this fanfare and brilliant, colorful light. Featuring 8 brass instruments and percussion, it is a high-energy explosion of sound. A rhythmically charged melody peaks over a relentless flow of repeated notes. Expansive harmonies are highlighted by sweeping virtuosic gestures in the horns and trumpets.

for more information, please visit http://www.rogerzare.com/spectral_fanfare.htm

Spectral Fanfare

Music by composer Roger Zare. Check out more by visiting http://www.rogerzare.com