Categories: NEW & RECENT Publications, TEST PIECES (Major Works)
Composer: Philip Wilby
For the Whitburn Band
Philip Wilby (2022)
ASTRALIS
for Brass Band
1 : Prologue : Ice and Fire
2 : Deep Field
3 : Black Hole
4 : Nebula
5 : Epilogue Ad Astra
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021.
JWST's primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-plated beryllium,making it the largest and most complete space telescope in history.
The famous ‘Pillars of Creation’ image, which is shown on the cover of this score,is one of the first to be brought to world attention.
Astralis takes various images, drawn from the telescope's deep field infra-red photographs as the starting point for its five sections.
These consist of a Prologue : Ice and Fire. After the opening chorale section,
I have composed a sound track to one of JWST zoomed images,
moving through space and time towards a distant and very beautifully lit nebula.
Second comes a sequence of musical images exploring the ‘Deep Field’ photographs.
Many of the objects that we can see sent their light towards us hundreds of years ago, and the results are both captivating and mysterious.
The vastness of space and the multiplicity of galaxies is a subject of infinite wonder.
The Black Hole section mirrors the inexorable progress of all matter and light towards the Black hole, where gravity is so intense that not even light can escape.
The final explosion of a star casts clouds of light and dust into space, and these vast quantities of material can often reform into new worlds.
The ‘Pillars of Creation’, found in the Eagle Nebula, may well be such a nursery for new stars.
The Epilogue ‘Ad Astra’ represents our own desire to travel and explore the vastness of the space
that surrounds us, and the countless possibilities shown to us by the James Web Space Telescope.
Astralis has been composed for the Whitburn Brass Band to play at the European Brass Band Championships, held in Malmo on May 7th 2023.
Philip Wilby : Skelton Windmill.
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