Without an observer, there can be no horizon. Standing on a shoreline, we can see about three miles to the earth’s apparent edge. Our atmosphere extends another 6,210 miles, while the sun’s light travels 93 million miles to reach us. Out of these distinct elements in our visual field, our minds construct “the horizon.”

As a composer, I’m drawn to composite sounds – sonorities that emerge, separate, and form new groupings at a leisurely pace, like clouds drifting across the sky. And nothing highlights the atmosphere like a sunset. 

So I conducted a little research. I watched the sun set over various bodies of water (New York Harbor, Lake Superior, the Tyrrhenian Sea) and noticed something curious. While we tend to visualize the horizon as a simple thing – a crisp line dividing sea and sky – in actuality, it’s much more elusive and interesting. It changes by the moment. We can chase it, but never catch up to it. You could almost call it playful.

When the horizon has a mind of its own is scored for piano and percussion. It is divided into four principal sections, separated by measured pauses. Each section evokes a different dynamic of sun, sea, horizon, and sky:

1)	unreliable mirror
2)	interrupting islands
3)	sky box
4)	afterimage 

In the space between our mental images and our perceptions, imagination thrives. I think that's true for sound as well as vision. From the interplay of sense experience and memory, music takes shape in our minds.

When the horizon has a mind of its own is dedicated to pianist Marilyn Nonken, who commissioned the score, and percussionist Jonathan Haas, who joined Marilyn in its world premiere. 

Steven Swartz
March, 2025

When the horizon has a mind of its own - WP at NYU, 04-24-2025

A composer whose music explores the interplay of sound and silence, form and memory, intention and process. Possessing “an instinct for sensuous color-blends” (Buffalo News), Swartz creates musical landscapes that evolve unpredictably as they move through time, like cloud formations across the sky.

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