Gray Overtures
Brass instruments excel at big musical moments. Composers rely on the brass section when a piece needs to “go to 11” and knock the socks off an audience with fanfares, overtures, soaring climaxes, and thunderous marches. As an erstwhile horn player, I knew that I wanted to write something big, brash, and bold when I was approached to write a brass quintet for the 2024 Lutheran Summer Music Festival. And yet, as a composer, I’m most interested in expressing complex moods and emotions through music. I’m drawn to subtlety, ambiguity, and uncertainty: the shades of gray that music can express without words.
Gray Overtures complicates the traditional brass overture by avoiding the black-and-white triumphalism of the genre. The piece is built around a fanfare of perfect fifths a half-step apart, as though the music itself cannot decide what key it’s in. Rhythm and meter constantly shift, making it difficult for the music to settle. A triumphant outburst near the end is superseded by ambiguous harmonies that close the work, hinting that the players themselves are wary of their own exuberance. Gray Overtures asks what happens when brilliance and uncertainty exist in the same musical space. Shades of gray are not always dull, and a brilliant spectrum of color can be found by listening deeply and paying attention to the subtlety and ambiguity of life and music.
LSM was a formative experience in my early musical life. I made lifelong friends and gained the confidence to pursue a career in music. I am grateful to LSM for the opportunity to write this piece and to return in the summer of 2024 to work with talented composition students.