Apogee [ap-uh-jee] (noun): the highest or greatest point: the culmination.

Having been partially inspired by Hokusai’s famous woodblock print, The Great Wave Off Kanagawa, my piece aims to capture some of the endlessly complex nature of water. Apogee (2020) for orchestra is constructed around a series of wave-like surges in the music, and so forward momentum is constantly created by the ebb and flow of musical intensity. The overarching wave structures provide a linear narrative within which individual parts can exist independent from one another; although Hokusai’s waves fracture into countless smaller constructions, they are nevertheless guided and propelled by the global sense of direction implied by the larger waveform. My piece explores how the individuality of each member of the orchestra can be maintained, even celebrated, without losing a sense of holistic cohesion. Only rarely in complete synchronicity, each instrumental part proceeds on its own personal journey, and yet the orchestra as a whole achieves unity of expression at the various explosive climaxes of the piece.

Winner of the 2020 OUMS Composition Prize.

Performed by Oxford University Sinfonietta and conducted by Joseph Beesley at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford on 28 February 2020.

Listen below.