Arctic (2013)

Arctic is a response to photographer Chris McCaw’s Sunburn series, a body of work exploring extended direct exposures of photo paper to sunlight. The long exposures, sometimes up to 24 hours, magnify the sun’s rays resulting in a literal burning of the paper. The result is an incinerated trace of the sun’s motion across a hazy, negative image of surrounding landscape. Combining pastoral beauty with a visceral physicality, the images evoke feelings of time, materiality and abstraction.

My piece Arctic responds to a pair of photos taken in Alaska, north of the arctic circle. Shot close to the summer solstice they are nearly 24 hour long exposures of the midnight sun. These images, huge 12 panel works, document the sun’s long, sinuous path across a barren, mountainous landscape. Arctic imagines both the midnight sun and the opposite phenomenon, polar night, or the 24 hours of darkness that occur during the winter solstice.

The first movement, Midnight Sun, is short and fast. Its relentless bright energy continues uninterrupted, pausing only to catch quick breaths before pushing forward. The second movement, Polar Night, begins slowly with a simple, undulating theme set against a long passacaglia figure. The music builds in intensity as flickers of color and grit emerge from the texture. As the intensity recedes we are left with the opening theme set against a slowly shifting harmony.

In both movements you will also hear traces of the burning found in McCaw’s photos. Musical lines dissolve into brittle color, harmony grinds into noise, and holes sometimes appear, recalling the seared paper of McCaw’s images.

Arctic was commissioned by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute and premiered November 20, 2013 in Zankel Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York City by the Mivos Quartet.

“Midnight Sun”, the first movement, was featured on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert on July 19, 2022.

July 19, 2022 Tiny Desk Concert, NPR Offices, Washington, D.C. Mivos Quartet.

February 2-3, 2018 MET, New York, NY. Mivos Quartet.

June 3, 2017 American Music Festival, EMPAC, Troy, NY. Argus Quartet.

April 2, 2017 Caramoor, Katanoh, NY. Argus Quartet.

March 31, 2017 Roulette, Brooklyn, NY. Argus Quartet.

March 3-11, 2017 Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK. Mivos Quartet (3 performances)

March 1, 2017 Shalin Liu Performance Center, Rockport, MA. Argus Quartet.

February 24, 2017 Boston Court Performing Arts Center, Pasadena, CA. Argus Quartet.

February 22, 2017 Los Angeles Community College, Los Angeles, CA. Argus Quartet.

February 14, 2017 Duke Hall Gallery of Fine Art, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA. Argus Quartet.