Quilt Horizon (2002)

Chamber Orchestra (17 players) with optional video 15 – min.
Publisher: Lauren Keiser Music Publishing

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Video

Audio

Score (Free Download)

Program Note

Quilt Horizon (2002), commissioned by Robert and Sara LeBien for the Indiana University New Music Ensemble, is the composer’s response to a brilliant and deeply engaging quilt by Melody Johnson displayed in the LeBien’s home. The music reflects the radiant color, explosive shapes, and underlying memorial tone of the quilt, and faithfully structures musical time in a way that observes the formal designs and proportions of the quilt.

The quilt, entitled “Eternal Horizons.” commemorates the tragic deaths of seven high school students caused by the collision of a commuter train with a school bus stopped in traffic. This happened in Fox River Grove, just east of Cary, Illinois, where Melody Johnson lives. The artist says, ” The gist of the design is the seven panels, four and three on either side of the center panel, for the seven lost kids and the central panel is the glorious heavenly vista which is their Eternal Horizon.”

Correspondingly, the music is in the form of eight panels separated by borders, each a clanging stroke for percussion, pianos and harp built on superimpositions of harmonies representing the colors found in the borders. All of the panels are treated as a succession of quilt sections viewed from bottom to top, excepting the central and final panels which are viewed top to bottom. The individual formal strategy of each of the musical panels represents not only the succession and proportions of the quilt’s patches, but also the unique design flow of each panel. For example, the seventh panel is the most elemental and the patches are represented by static rising blocks of sound. In contrast to this, the patterns of the last panel scurry together, superimposing elements from earlier in the piece until falling into the languorous, comforting green waves that dominate the lower right panel of the quilt. The fifth panel contains the most extended and ecstatic musical sections, reflecting the quilt artist’s glorious Eternal Horizon.