Patricia Morehead, Composer and oboist, describes sources of her work and the way these ideas are manifest in the writing of "Night Sky", for String Quartet:
"My inspiration for Night Sky began with a fascinating presentation by Vicki Sherwood, an astronomer from Orillia. She studied the night sky paintings of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson and tried to determine the time of year when they were painted by identifying the stars and constellations in the many paintings.
Growing up in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with wide-open night skies and wonderful northern lights, my first love was astronomy. I have chosen to set Cassiopeia, Phasses of the Moon, Big Dipper and Aurora Borealis with interludes that describe the Milky Way.
My compositional influences are J.S. Bach, Arnold Schoenberg and the music of the Medieval and Renaissance periods that are so rich in counterpoint. Each section of this piece is derived from different scale types, but not the normal major and minor systems with which we are so familiar in tonal music. I have used modes of limited transposition, the octatonic scale, a scale invented from Sudoku and some 12-tone practice devices to give a certain pitch colour to each section named as follows:
Cassiopeia -- Interlude -- Phases of the Moon -- Interlude -- the Big Dipper -- Interlude -- Aurora Borealis
Cassiopeia is shaped like a big W in the sky, and I used this shape visually on the music staff to create the five pitches that start the string quartet and portray this very beautiful, but also very haughty and selfish lady that rules the night sky. A 9-note set of pitches from Sudoku is used for the Milky Way interludes. "Phases of the Moon "uses a slowly developing mood from the first crescent which becomes the sublime light of the full moon. The Big Dipper portrays Ursa Major (Mother Bear) and Ursa Minor (Little Bear) who are dancing around Polaris (the Night Star) which is represented by a recurring note A. The piece ends with the ever-changing colours of the Aurora Borealis. Patricia Morehead To learn more about this icon of contemporary Classical Music composition go to https://www.patriciamorehead.com/
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