Celestial X was premiered by Michael Hey, winner of the 2010
Juilliard Organ Concerto competition, at Juilliard's Paul Hall on
March 14, 2011. Michael Hey went on to win a competition performing this piece.
Soon after the class of 2013 finished its orientation at Juilliard, Michael Hey approached me in one of the school's hallways to ask if I would write him a piece. He added that his teacher, Paul Jacobs, encourages all his students to commission new
works for the organ. Perhaps since some of my earliest exposures to music were through organ concerts, I agreed. My mother tells me that I always managed to drag her into churches whenever I got wind of an organ concert, which happened often in Augsburg, the town near Munich where I spent the first three years of my life. It was not until orientation at college that someone asked me to write for the instrument, and not until sophomore year that I did.
This piece is five minutes long and has three main parts. A sparkling fugato, introduced by a series of grand chords. When the dense counterpoint ends, the middle section emerges like an organ grinder that's been playing its quiet waltz all along. It is the piece's most overt incarnation of the opening's tempo
indication, "Like a waltz." The piece ends quasi symmetrically, with another fugato and finally some more big chords.
Perfect for concert and church.
Member of ASCAP.
Contact arranger and composer Jan Shé at his website www.JanShe.com.