To Shiver the Sky

From Wind Repertory Project
Christopher Tin

Christopher Tin (transcribed by composer)


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General Info

Year: 2020 / 2022
Duration: c. 53:00
Difficulty: (see Ratings for explanation)
Original Medium: Orchestra
Publisher: Christopher Tin
Cost: Score and Parts - Unknown


Movements

1. Sogno di Volare (The Dream of Flight) – 3:50
2. The Heavenly Kingdom – 2:05
3. Daedalus and Icarus – 5:10
4. The Fall
5. Astronomy
6. To the Stars
7. Oh, the Humanity
8. Courage
9. Become Death
10. The Power of the Spirit
11. We Choose to Go to the Moonv


Instrumentation

(Needed - please join the WRP if you can help.)


Errata

None discovered thus far.


Program Notes

This is the story of flight: of humanity’s quest to break the bonds of earth, challenge the heavens, and take our rightful place among the stars.

It’s a story whose main protagonists strapped on helmets and boots, to brave the longest distances just to leave their footprints on new lands. But it’s also the tale of those who made these great achievements possible: like the astronomers who showed us our place among the stars, and the poets who showed us our place between heaven and hell. Or the 19th-century French novelist who invented science fiction -- whose imaginings, a century later, stoked a thirst for space travel, and gave an American president the public support needed to commit his country towards humanity’s singular greatest achievement: landing a man on the moon, and returning him safely to earth.

This is a story of courage: the courage to be the first woman to fly the Atlantic, or the first man launched across the threshold of space. But it’s also a story of failure: of the fall of man, whose hubris made him reach for forbidden knowledge. It’s a story riddled with cataclysmic disaster; where the soaring inventions of great men and women plummet to earth in fiery wreckage. And at its darkest moments, it’s also a story of death: one where airplanes built to soar among the clouds are used instead for dropping bombs; or on one day of extreme darkness, are used as bombs themselves.

But humans are resilient, and the call of the sky unavoidable. And despite innumerable failures, whenever the night seems darkest, that dream of flight beckons to us back to our feet -- to emerge from the darkness to re-behold the stars.

This is the story of flight told through music, and through the words of 11 of history’s pioneers: pilots and engineers, scientists and storytellers, stargazers and mystics; men and women who freed us from the shackles of gravity, and stretched the limits of our imagination. It’s the greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.

- Program Note from publisher


To Shiver the Sky features texts about the history of flight ranging from Leonardo da Vinci's writings on flight to John F. Kennedy's "We Choose to go to the Moon" speech. The work’s opening movement, Sogno di Volare, was composed as a main theme for the 2016 video game Civilization IV.

- Program Note from U.S. Air Force Band


Media


State Ratings

None discovered thus far.


Performances

To submit a performance please join The Wind Repertory Project

  • United States Air Force Band (Washington, D.C.) (Christopher Tin, conductor; The Choral Arts Society of Washington) – 15 May 2022 *Premiere Performance*


Works for Winds by this Composer

Adaptable Music

  • Baba Yetu (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Vinson) (2005/2019)
  • Sogno di Volare (Flex instrumentation) (arr. Brown) (2016/2019)


All Wind Works


Resources

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