Bengal Lights

The richness of the music of the sub-contient is an eternal inspiration, showing music to be the fusion and balance of opposites: improvisation and calculation, freedom and form, rhythm and melody.

Indian musical thinking has acted through thecenturies as a model for articulating thought through sound.

I have based my piece on an Indian temple dance in which a short motivic nugget generates garlands and trails of sonic colour.

The raga-form is maintained, with anintruduction comprizing a presentation of the scale-material, out of which the sonic nugget is forged.

The work was premiered by The Norwegian Navy Band Bergen conducted by Peter Szilvay in 2007.

This newversion was edited by thecomposer in 2015.