Art of the Divine is a solo harmonic piano work, inspired by John Adams' "Phrygian Gates," relating to various ceiling architectures that resides in chapels around the world. Inspiration for the composition was drawn after viewing images of the beautiful ceilings of the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Vilnius, Lithuania. The ceilings of the church depicts scenes of God, angels, and other religious figures living in heaven. The vibrant ceiling paintings are surrounded by pristine white walls. In order to truly emulate the innocence and sophisticated beauty of the ceiling art, I use a common chord progression with the use of note extensions.

Performer: Lauren Sarkela

Art of the Divine - Willie Cornish Jr.

The graphic above is a visualization of global wind patterns; massive amounts of weather data are fed into a supercomputer that then produces a live (or pseudo-live) “wind map.” The swirls and swoops are color-coded: areas of blue and green are relatively calm, while red and purple usually imply devastating conditions in a tropical system. There is something particularly poetic about seeing our atmosphere on such a macro scale; the same colors converted from numerical data also suggest Van Gogh-esque brushstrokes. The confluence of the empirical and the aesthetic in the “wind map” has proved wildly inspiring for the composition of this piece.

The Juilliard Orchestra (reading)
Jeffrey Milarsky, conductor

Wind Map (2018): for orchestra

Composer, Arranger, and music lover.
Furman University '22
University of Michigan '24
-To view/purchase sheet music or to know more, visit: www.williecornishjr.com

Art of the Divine - Willie Cornish Jr.

Willie Cornish Jr.

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