January Morning by Rachel Lanik Whelan

Some nights bring more peaceful sleep than others. This piece was born out of a morning of continuously waking and turning towards the ever-open window in the middle of a cold, but very still, January. Ultimately, I wanted to present the abundance of stillness and the cold that is ever present this time of year, but I also wanted the sense of peace and calm that accompanies these early morning hours. The beginning reflects the muggy heaviness of blearily peering through sleepy eyes to see a groggy purple: the purple of a winter night. The melody is presented in the flute at the very end of this first section. The clarinets continuously propel the music to the next color of morning. Next is the dark gray that fills the space between streetlamps, and the melody is reinterpreted in the lower woodwinds. A fermata and punctuated woodwinds herald the slate gray of the sky, and finally the music threads in and out of a lush melodic escape towards the clear gray of another triumphant January morning.

Recorded live on 3/9/14 in Kimball Recital Hall at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.