Premiere New York Premiere
Production Language English
Country of Origin United States
Description About Sun Rings, composer Terry Riley writes: "The ten 'spacescapes' that comprise Sun Rings were written as separate musical atmospheres with the intention to let the sounds of space influence the string quartet writing and then to let there be an interplay between live “string” and recorded “space” sound.
"In some movements, the intention was to place the quartet in such a way that it felt like they were traveling through spatial atmospheres, as a symbolic representation of the wanderings of space probes Voyager and Galileo as they moved through what must have been the incredible atmospheres of our solar system. In some cases, fragments of melody that I observed in these sounds became the basis for themes that were developed in the quartet writing. The addition of the two movements with the choirs was to further emphasize that this work is largely about humans as they reach out from earth to gain an awareness of their solar system neighborhood."
Identifier 2004f.00800
