Valsa Eólica

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Valsa Eólica for Concert Band is an easier arrangement with a slightly smaller instrumentation of the “slow waltz” from my Waltzing Dervish for Wind (powered) Ensemble.  This larger piece was begun in January 2010 and finished in March of the same year, and this present arrangement was created in March and April 2013 when I was living in Brazil.

Waltzing Dervish was written as a set of waltzes which brings together several things having to do with spinning, including dancing waltzes, whirling dervishes, and energy-producing wind turbines.  Valsa Eólica (pronounced “val-sa eh-o-lee-ka”) is the “slow” waltz of the set extracted and simplified in a few minor ways and presented as a separate piece.  The title is Portuguese for “Wind Waltz,” but I chose to have it in Portuguese partly because I created the arrangement while in Brazil and partly because it simply sounds better to my ear.

It seems that many people still view wind turbines as eyesores and feel that their clean-energy production is not worth having such “hideous” structures in their line of view, but my encounters with them have been the exact opposite.  I have found them to be beautiful and majestic spinning structures and symbols of a bright future of an America which meets its energy needs with renewable sources that have a minimal impact on the environment without releasing pollution into the air.  I hope that this music depicts the majesty, power, beauty, hopefulness, playfulness, ecstasy, and “Joie de vivre” of these spinning structures through the medium of the waltz.  And, of course, what better medium to write this work for than an ensemble that runs on wind power itself?

This work has not yet been premiered.