Global Flyer (2008)

Global Flyer is written in reflection and respect of the “Great Race” of 1908, in which the Thomas Flyer—the entry from the United States—won this one-and-only such event ever held. I had the opportunity to visit the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada this month, and since (to me) the perpetual synchronized movement of machinery within a personally-expressive body in the automobile is one of man’s most splendid modern juxtapositions of engineering and art, I wrote this work to commemorate the centennial of one of the automobile’s milestones.

Musically, the work demonstrates continuous energy and movement through complex rhythmic interplay within a three-part framework. The outer sections include a canonic ostinato as the “motor rhythm,” while the middle section is more syncopated and modal; the modal thought perhaps reflects the long trip through Eastern Europe on the last leg of the journey.