Growing up in the prairies made me appreciate the spaciousness of the area and the openness of the landscape. So it's natural for these influences to be heard in the music I write. A lot of times, especially in my orchestral music, one will hear references to the sounds of the prairie environment in my works, such as the sounds of gusting winds, birds, lakes, or even the stillness of winter seasons. In Horizon Images, many of those elements can be found in each of the movements, much of which were unconscious decisions that grew out of the ideas I started with.
The work was commissioned by cello and piano duo Brian and Sylvie Cheng. The first movement expresses my fondness of harmonic simplicity and folk-like elements. It is short, preludial, and consists of gentle melodic graces that are simple but not simple-minded. The second movement is quite emotion-laden and harmonically dense. The melodic language is built on gestures that are equivalent to vocal wails and sighs, elements I use frequently in my music to intensify the emotional gravitas of the music. The third movement captures a more kinetic and brighter side of my personality. It's quite rhapsodic and uses a lot of very gestural material.
Horizon Images is dedicated to Louise Mortimer and OrKidstra.
