Orchestral Music
"Awakening" for Orchestra is John Evans' new symphonic orchestral work.
John is seeking an orchestra to premiere "Awakening." Please explore "Awakening" below...
"Awakening" for Orchestra
Having retired from touring playing rock music John has spent the last years composing "Awakening," symphonic work in four movements. It has been a labour of love and has culminated in an emotional and rich new orchestral piece.
“What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden."
Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton, T. S. Elliot
Awakening is a journey. I used to write songs and tour as a rock musician. As the years went by I started to see these songs as snapshots of my life - periods of my life or about someone in particular.
“Awakening” for orchestra is in four movements. Each of the elements and themes within each movement is an expression about my feelings during this period.
The first movement, “Out of darkness” starts with a long forbidding note. There is a slow brooding build up depicting a melancholic state that transcends into something more affirming. The movement explores a variety of themes and contrasting keys and sections resolving into pastoral music depicting a love of nature and England as I thought it once was…
“Flight” movement two, is an expression of escaping the internal violence, angst, fear and the traumatic landscape of half remembered dreams and memories. I explore the high and lows and the extremes of chaos in a fast moving movement that is punctuated with percussive rhythms and strong brass outbursts.
"There's a storm thats raging through my days and it burns like ice and fire..."
John Evans "One more fight" from the album "A Better Man"
EXTRACT from "Flight" - movement II
The realisation of "Awakening" has been made using Spitfire BBC Symphony Orcheatra's samples.
“Awakening”, the third movement of the Symphony and the movement from which the Symphony is named, is a neo-romantic dreamscape, a fulfilling awakening, moving away from darkness and looking towards the light. The movement opens with rich string ensemble writing and soaring melodies, a calming from the previous movement, memories of a lost love. An elegy for the brevity of life and inspired by the T.S. Elliot quote “in my beginning is my end” with the movement resolving in hope.
"I say unto you: one must still have chaos in onself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves."
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" Friedrich Nietzsche
EXTRACT from "Awakening" - movement III
The realisation of "Awakening" has been made using Spitfire BBC Symphony Orcheatra's samples.
“Coming Home” (the final movement) is an affirmation of this awakening, a coming home to myself and nature. Each of the previous movements themes are drawn together, entangled and developed seeking an acceptance, but perhaps not a resolution.
Listen to "Awakening"
Please listen to all four movements of "Awakening" below