Want to wake up your spirit? Do your ears a favor and listen to John Mackey’s Aurora Awakes for concert band. Talk about golden ear candy! It’s so beautiful. The piece begins with the 2/2 passage in a chorale-like setting. The time signatures within the first few pages denote a rapid searching of tempo with 2/2 being the first time signature followed by 3/2, followed by 5/4 and on and on.The legato setting is embellished in beautiful timpani and marimba rolls that are held out throughout the first few pages of the work. It’s a fabulous effect. This piece has some surging points where it lifts up and smacks you over the head with wide brilliance. I picture the Araura as a fictional character much like that of Sleeping Beauty, a beautiful, sweet savor that awakes after a long rest.
In fact, the light marimba and timpani rolls are at such a soft interval of triple piano and start the piece off that you almost don't know what's coming. It's another one of these pieces that makes you stop and reflect on the sadness and happiness is of life. Soft other woodwinds and other instruments embellish the texture in a trill like manner. Then before you know it, the texture takes as loud turn of expressiveness and enter the brass, the silvery brass. There is a wild Evan flow and the piece that is seeking to be tamed. The harmonies are just beautiful rocking back and forth between each other. You can't quite go to sleep to this piece, rather in the first half of the piece, you are on the edge of your seat being propelled forward. You're looking at what else is to come expecting excitement. The latter half of the peace is a forward-looking jaunt—an inspirational type thing used to transcend barriers. It definitely is a winner at festivals. Color breathes in the last half as the majestic queen awakes from her slumber.
It’s a piece that makes you gasp and gulp for air due to excitement of the textures and what’s going on. This piece deserves a standing ovation several times over. There are hints of darkness in some areas of the piece but the majority of it is just inspirational to the nth degree. It sounds as if it's something that David Maslanka would do. There influences of the hearing now in this piece everywhere. It is a piece to encourage you from depression and of evil spirits I believe. The most modern bitten the piece is the chimes and the flutes repeating this Second to fourth motif over and over again. The piece ends and a big E flat major chord in the brass. This is one for the record books. Go take a listen.
