Jennifer Bellor

The Henderson Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Alexandra Arrieche, commissioned me to write Sky Bells. For more information about the work, please click HERE

Program note:

My inspiration comes from many places, visual elements related to memories, dreams, art, animation, even poetry.  Sky Bells was inspired by a hike I took on the Cathedral Lake Trail in Aspen, Colorado. I remember the blue lake sparkling in the sunlight enclosed by the mountains.  I went back to a piece I had written in 2009 about this hike, Celestial Surroundings for brass, pipe organ and percussion, and found even more inspiration to build upon my original composition. The initial brass theme from Celestial Surroundings gave life to this work which I called Sky Bells.

This piece shows something vast and unchanging juxtaposed against the tumultuousness of passing time. Imagine a large gothic cathedral on top of clouds, bells ringing, remaining firm and rooted. Yet, as time passes, light turns to darkness and back to light, everything in the periphery grows and dies and continues the same cycle, but the cathedral remains unaffected and the bells keep ringing.

Check out this beautiful music video! Visual Artists Inka Hannula and Teemu Raudaskoski produced this artwork in reaction to the miniature version of my piece “Time’s Arrest” performed by Niko Ronimus. 

Niko gave the Finnish premiere of the piece in Nokia back in October, and then he introduced me to Inka and Teemu (from Tampere, Finland) over a Zoom meeting earlier this year. We all talked about how this pandemic has been motivating us to explore new collaborations, and this gorgeous art work they created, which interprets both my music and Niko’s performance of it, is an example. I hope we collaborate again on new projects, and can’t wait to travel to Finland at some point in the future to meet them in person! 

https://www.inkahannula.com/selected-work

www.teemuraudaskoski.com

“A Song of Flight” performed by the Heartland Marimba Orchestra

Heartland Marimba arranged my song for soprano and piano to feature eleven performers (marimba, vibraphone, and glockenspiel). This was such a cool experience for me to hear this song reinvented by this group, and it has inspired me to think about how many more of my songs that can be adapted to fit a variety of instrumentations.

The performance features: Chad Beebe, Jaime Esposito, Josh Fulford, Hunter Gross, Tyler Marvin, Joe Millea, Jordan Nielsen, Ryan Pearson, Alyssa Resh, Matt Silverberg, and Lauren Teel.

Sky Bells (2020)

for orchestra

Duration: 8 1/2 minutes

2 Flutes – 1 Oboe – 1 English Horn – 1 Clarinet in Bb – *1 Bass Clarinet – 2 Bassoon – 4 Horn in F – 2 Trumpet in C – 2 Trombone – 1 Bass Trombone – 1 Tuba – Timpani – *Percussion – Harp – Piano – Full Strings

Flexible Instrumentation:

*Second clarinet in Bb part available in lieu of bass clarinet

* If 3 percussionists are not available, there is a part available for 1 percussionist.

Click HERE to view the score.

Sky Bells was commissioned by the Henderson Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Alexandra Arrieche for premiere on their 2021 concert season.

There is also a version available for wind orchestra.:

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for wind orchestra

Duration: 8 1/2 minutes

Wind Orchestra Instrumentation (same as wind ensemble plus harp and double bass):

Two Flutes – One Oboe – One English Horn – Two Bassoons – One Contrabassoon (optional) – Three Clarinets in Bb – One Bass Clarinet – One Contrabass Clarinet (optional) – One Soprano Saxophone – One Alto Saxophone – One Tenor Saxophone – One Baritone Saxophone – Three Trumpets in Bb – Four Horns – Two Trombones – One Bass Trombone – One Euphonium – Tuba – Double Bass (optional) – Harp (optional) – Piano – Timpani – Three Percussion

Click HERE to view the score.

Here is the newly revised version of my composition Celestial Surroundings.

3 Trumpets in C, 1 Horn in F, 2 Trombones, *Percussion, Pipe Organ

*Optional percussion: The percussion part is optional, and all or some of the part can be played given the availability of the following instruments:

Tubular Bells, Suspended cymbal, Glockenspiel

Flexible instrumentation: Contact info@jenniferbellor.com.

MIDI demo with score of the new version:

Duration: 7 minutes

Celestial Surroundings (2009) was premiered by organist Nicole Marane and brass players from the Atlanta Symphony at Peachtree United Methodist church in Atlanta, GA February 8, 2009.

Here is a recording of the original version from the premiere:

My first multi-screen music video collaboration! Linda Lister and Katie Leung are performing an excerpt of my song “Echo” from my song cycle “A Smile and a Sigh” (the soprano and piano version). They were going to perform it on the April 6th Nextet new music concert here at UNLV, but since the concert was canceled, I figured it would be fun to learn how to create multi-screen music videos. I spent the entire day putting this together, and learned so much! I can’t thank them enough for taking the time to record the excerpt!