A Little History
I grew up in the beautiful province of B.C., Canada where I was privileged to spend many summers in the interior and northern interior sections of this amazing province. The scenery is stunning and so very unique. What a fantastic way to spend the summers of one’s youth.
As long as I can remember the month of August would have forest fires in many areas and there would be warnings and notices as to where it was safe or not safe to hike and camp etc. As someone who loves hiking in isolated areas it was very important to be informed about forest fires.
Sadly, I started noticing over the years that the fires were starting earlier in the year, lasting longer and covering a much larger area. According to scientists this is a direct result of global warming and climate change.
I thought about writing a piece of music to describe some of the problems caused by global warming I naturally thought about the forest fires I had grown up with and how they were appearing with greater frequency, were harder to contain, and harder to put out.
A couple of times when I was overly close to a couple of forest fires I noticed how the sky would appear to be on fire and the sun would disappear behind the smoke of the fire. It seemed like the earth itself was on fire and like the sun had died and all that was left were the flames and smoke. This piece of music is my attempt at musically describing what I saw.
In 2017 I wrote The Sun Has Turned for C flute and 1 or 2 pianos (piano keyboard and piano strings).
This year when Jaye Marsh asked me to write a piece for C flute and Alto flute for her to record in late August 2024 I asked her if could revise The Sun Has Turned which she performed in 2017 for flute and piano. She said yes. So, I revised (re-arranged) The Sun Has Turned for two flutes (C flute and alto flute)
The flute parts include a few challenges such as bent notes, flutter tonguing and key slaps which hopefully help to create the feeling of a forest fire.
