RMNP - Artist Residency - Day 12

Well my 2 week residency is almost over. One more night and I check out by noon tomorrow. Final thoughts or grand statements about art and nature will come later.

For the time being, I am very pleased to be nearly finished with my 2 minute horn fanfare. After searching through many of bad ideas, I found something I like and am pleased with the piece. It will be pretty wild to hear 8 horns play my music. Since they don’t have to balance with any strings or other winds, it will be loud.

This piece is a specific response to my time in RMNP. It is the official piece that I will offer the park as a document of my residency. The piece does not have a title yet but it was inspired by a particularly wonderful drive to the Alpine Visitor Center on Trail Ridge Road. We went up around 7PM last weekend and experienced the sun setting on the higher parts of the road. In all my life, I have never watched the sun set from such an elevation. It was the most incredible and warm/orange/intense light. So my piece is a reflection of that late alpine light. Hopefully next week I can get CU horn faculty Michael Thornton to play through portions of the piece to see how it lays on the horn.

I hiked to Mills Lake yesterday. This was one absolutely great hike. Great views the entire way and a huge variety of terrain and landscape. Mills lake is probably the most beautiful RMNP lake I have yet hiked to. I am thinking of hiking to the Loch tomorrow to check out another lake.

I will be sad to leave but happy to be back with my wife and daughter.