Shooting Stars Over City Cars is a love letter to Southern Californian cities. This piece began as the poem you see above and evolved into a multi-movement work that depicts the chaos, beauty, and togetherness of fireworks on the Fourth of July in the inner cities of Southern California. This piece is programmatic in the sense that I wanted to tell a story and have
structured the piece in this way.

 

They Trickle In depicts the beginning of the night, where just before sundown you begin to hear the stray fireworks gradually stacking upon one another until the cacophony begins and intensifies. The second movement, Covering Us Like Willow Branches, focuses on the stillness that can be found in the beauty of the fireworks as we get lost in the sights and sounds. This music is meant to invoke the cascading imagery of the night and how at times you feel engulfed in the light, as if under an old willow tree. The final movement, Shooting Stars Over City Cars, is the bombastic finale to the night. There is always that sweet spot in the nights where everyone seems to be setting off their fireworks at the same time.

 

There is a duality to this: the chaos that occurs from the immense presence of sound and light, but also the soft reverence of togetherness that you sense in the air as we all celebrate as one.