Growing up in the atmospherically volatile Midwest, I naturally developed an interest in meteorology at an early age. To this day, a sudden severe thunderstorm, while frightening to most, still exhilarates me. Hailing from the land of tornados and blizzards proved to be a huge inspiration while writing my bassoon quartet, Pillars of the Sky; ironically, this piece was composed in the arguably weather-less climate of Los Angeles, California.

     In this suite, I chose five of my favorite evocative weather phenomena, all of which are listed and explained below. Early on in the writing process I eliminated rain, snow, and wind from my list of topics because frankly - they’re just not that exciting. It’s when the tornado sirens start blaring or the hurricane looms off the coast or those thick black clouds start rolling your way that weather demands your full attention.Program Notes

     Thus, the following five rare weather phenomena (written incidentally for the rather rare ensemble of four bassoons) were all chosen to represent that awe- inspiring allure that weather has on all of us. In Pillars of the Sky, I imagined the pillars themselves as the four bassoons, providing a firm foundation on which the piece was constructed. The sky is represented by a chord dramatically outlined in the work’s first measure. This “light”-motif serves as the harmonic foundation for the entire set of pieces. It was the center around which I built my various musical depictions, the proverbial sun in Pillars of the Sky. Together, these two ideas, pillar and sky, combine to evoke the visual experience of weather through the aural experience of music.

     In this piece I have strived to capture both the innate beauty and raw intensity of these five weather phenomena, and in so doing, expressed my enduring love of weather through music.