SKY HARBOUR for Wind Quintet

I. Prelude to a Sky Sail

II. The Port at Tristanvale

III. Lodestar

IV. Brigantine Flight

ABOUT THE COMPOSITION I've had the fortune of performing clarinet with flautist Charmaine Bacon and her Canadian Bacon Wind Quintet for a number of years. When she asked if I had anything written for wind quintet, I immediately responded with a resounding "Yes!", and then started writing... Like much of my writing, my inspiration comes from various sources collected from different pockets of time, and this was especially true of Sky Harbour.

First, the title is borrowed from the name of an airport in Phoenix, AZ, overheard while I was travelling on a family vacation a number of years ago. "Would make a great name for a piece one day..." I said to nobody while wandering around the various, bustling passenger lounges on a balmy, November afternoon. In my mind, I tried to picture a similarly vibrant sky port filled with flying ships and sailing vessels of all sorts, shapes, and sizes ferrying passengers to countless destinations.

Second, and serendipitously, I was gifted a story for that title when I began playing a homebrewed Dungeons & Dragons campaign years later, led by my good friend and fellow composer, Julian Beutel. During a particular quest, our heroes found themselves in the fictional town of Tristanvale to board a ship to a neighbouring city. Julian described the heroes galivanting around the port town: two went shopping at the markets, two went in search of tomes at the city's mage university, and the last two (myself included) enjoyed a few too many pints in the corner of a dusty tavern. What thrilled me the most was when the sailing ship was described: we came to the docks and found a large brigantine with its hull encrusted with hundreds of sparkling, multi-coloured, gem-like spellstones. After climbing aboard, the various mages present on deck and off the docks used their spellbinding abilities to lift a runway of river water flowing up into the sky, where the ship proceeded to "takeoff" and fly with the help of mage magic and the natural power of wind against the ship's rustling sails. Music seemed a natural choice for me to explore the wind-swept feelings, swashbuckling shenanigans, and star-gazing yearnings those characters shared during the course of their adventure.

Even though I am terrible at mentally visualizing things (both images and sounds), I have been reminded through this writing process that there is always a safe haven in the loftiest parts of my mind where I can retreat to when the real world gets too... real. This piece is written with deep gratitude to both Julian and Charmaine - two friends who have this endless ability, charm, and energy to program fun and imaginative experiences in my life; this music would not exist without them. As a woodwind player myself, I aimed to create a piece of chamber music that would be especially fun to play with my friends and colleagues - like a band of ragtag heroes who boarded a flying ship headed to a faraway Sky Harbour.