Voyager

string quintet, or large string ensemble
(2025)

The inspiration for this piece comes from the two “Voyager” spacecraft that USA’s NASA launched in 1977. The purpose of these unmanned craft was to provide close observations of the distant planets, and then to leave the solar system to explore space at great distances from the sun. Both of these Voyagers are now so far from the Sun that they can no longer detect its radiation. Still, they continue sending information back to Earth as they travel ever-farther into space.

Each movement of this piece is based on a different short poem that I composed to help me solidify imagery for the music. A short description of each movement follows:

The first movement is inspired by the power and speed needed to send a spacecraft outside of Earth’s gravitational pull. Scientists use the term “escape velocity” to describe that speed and use powerful rockets to achieve it. Loud and low grumbling sounds begin this movement to evoke the power of those rocket engines, then the music begins rising in pitch while also getting faster and quieter. Soaring melodic threads then evoke the rocket arching through the sky.

“Flyby” , the title of the second movement, is a term used to describe how a spacecraft passes close to a planet, letting its gravity pull the craft close while whipping it around the planet at great speeds. Both Voyagers made flybys of various planets to make close-up observations of them, to increase speed and to change course. So in this movement, speed again plays an important part. A floating sort of music occasionally speeds up, as if it is being pulled by the gravity of a giant planet. Also, crescendos evoke the feeling of getting closer while diminuendos seem to leave a planet behind.

The third movement, “Gentle Light” is based on my imagining of what it might be like for a spacecraft to be so far from the Sun that the light is no longer bright and hot. Instead, the light reflecting off of Voyager’s metallic parts might only be gentle sparkles. Even at that immense and lonely distance, however, both Voyagers stay in contact with people on Earth using small radios with dish antennas that gaze back at us.

Performance duration ca. 15 minutes.