Score and parts for hire

In Lumina I wanted to create a musical depiction of light in a variety of different contexts. Chief among these are some of the landscapes I encountered during the time I spent as a student in the US. In the first section, for instance, I had in my mind the vast, expansive landscapes of upstate New York, an area dominated by hills and forest land. The soft contours of this region, and the way light interacts around it, is represented by the massive build-up of a simple melodic phrase, played at the beginning in the high register of the tuba. Later on in the piece, light is depicted in the more transient and volatile context of a city such as New York. Here, light is imagined as a glittering, mesmeric array of neon, viewed both from an aerial position as a blanket of light, such as one ,might see from an aeroplane, and in rapidly changing formations, as one would experience on ground level. Musically the piece frequently combines long melodic phrases with fast figuration, shared between the piano, percussion and woodwind. As in some of my other recent works, this piece continues to explore the idea of musical perspective, and the ways in which musical ideas might come in and out of focus during the course of a piece. Lumina is dedicated to the memory of Nona Williams, a family friend who passed away earlier this year, and lasts approximately ten minutes. Joseph Phibbs, 2003

‘… a dazzlingly articulate depiction of changing light…’ Paul Driver (The Sunday Times), 21 September 2003 ‘Lumina’s clever alternation, and overlapping, of affecting but never cloying lyricism and well-orchestrated but never vacuous glitter didn’t once risk alienating his enormous audience…’ Keith Potter (The Independent), 17 September 2003 ‘Joseph Phibbs’s ten-minute Lumina was the first ray of light… the players of the BBC Symphony Orchestra were clearly excited by Phibbs’s exuberant exploitation of their skills in the world premiere of a work which alternated slow yet dazzling dawns over Coplandesque landscapes with glittering, volatile cityscapes of rapid figuration, spangled by piano, pitched percussion and woodwind.’ Hilary Finch (The Times), 15 September 2003 ‘Joseph Phibbs's Lumina, commissioned for the occasion, is a 10-minute landscape piece evoking the differing lights of urban and rural America. It is cast as a slow-fast sequence full of carefully shaded sonorities and gives a real sense of speeding towards its climax.’ Andrew Clements (The Guardian), 15 September 2003