Performances

Premiere: Fireworks Ensemble, Oregon Bach Festival Composers Symposium, Beall Hall, University of Oregon, Eugene, July 2, 2005

Case Western Reserve University Percussion Ensemble, Matthew Bassett, Music Director, Cleveland State University, April 9, 2007

Case Western Reserve University Percussion Ensemble, Matthew Bassett, Music Director, Harkness Chapel, Case Western Reserve University, April 14, 2007

Program Note

Dante’s View is the name of a high place in Death Valley, California. Situated in the Black Mountains, more than a mile high — and directly above the place known as Badwater, which at 283’ below sea level is the lowest point in the Western hemisphere– this famous view is rather like one seen from an airplane. The immensity of the valley stretching out below is imponderable.

On a visit to the park in March of 2004, I found myself utterly alone in that place, but for a lone raven and a few skittering lizards, thanks to an unusually wet year in the desert which had washed out the road. Enjoying the amazing array of subtle desert colors layered and swirling in rock and brush around and below, with the heavenly blue sky above and the snow capped Panamint Mountains directly opposite on the far side of the valley—the feeling was one of serene calm, combined with supreme exhilaration. This music grew out of that feeling.