DARKENING, THEN BRIGHTENING for Soprano and Wind Ensemble by CHRISTOPHER CERRONE (USA, 1984)
- 14 minutes ago
- 4 min read
[#346] March 09, 2026
USA | 2024 | Soprano and Wind Ensemble | Grade 5 | 17’ | Solo work
Premiered by University of Illinois Wind Symphony
conducted by Kevin Geraldi on Apr 03, 2024 in Champaign, USA
This piece is available for purchase at Christopher Cerrone
Darkening, Then Brightening, by American composer Christopher Cerrone is our Composition of the Week.
Darkening, Then Brightening, for Wind Ensemble and Solo Soprano was written in 2024 and premiered by the University of Illinois (Champaign) Wind Symphony, conducted by Kevin Geraldi, featuring soprano Lindsey Kesselman, on 3 April 2024, to whom the work is dedicated. The text is based on the poetry of Kim Addonizio (USA, 1954).
The work has a duration of 17 minutes, its five parts: Here, My Heart, Darkening, The Brightening, What Do Women Want and Mermaid Song, are to be performed without interruption.
It is scored for:
solo soprano and wind ensemble (3(I,II=picc).1.eh.3.bcl.2–4sax(SATB)—4.3.2.btbn.1.euph—pno.hp—solosop—0.0.0.0.1).
“Darkening, Then Brightening is my first composition for wind ensemble. When approached about the project, I knew I would be in unfamiliar territory, so I suggested that the work also feature a soprano soloist, a voice type for which I have written regularly. I also suggested the soloist be -- in the case of the premiere -- Lindsay Kesselman, a long-time collaborator, and a dear friend.
It was Lindsay who inspired me to adapt the poems of Kim Addonizio, whose complex, emotionally layered poems of love, loss, and motherhood mirror Lindsay’s own life. Once I suggested the opening poem, Here, Lindsay was instrumental in choosing many of the other poems in the cycle. Her unique and indelible personality inspired me to reach outside of my familiar experience and try to empathize with an author’s life that has been quite different from my own. Darkening, Then Brightening is structured as a five-part arch form where the first and fifth, and second and fourth, movements mirror one another, all surrounding a gentle “night music.” The godfather of this kind of structure is the great Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, though many composers have used it since. Compositionally, the outer movements seek to invert the traditional hierarchy of the wind ensemble, where percussion often acts as a punctuation to wind and brass instruments. In these gentle, spacious movements, the winds serve as a kind of unearthly sustain on the struck metal instruments of glockenspiel, vibraphone, crotales, and other bells. The second and fourth movements reverse the inversion (if you’ll pardon the phrase). The outer movements are all decay, while the inner fast movements are all swell -- starting from a single clarinet, each musical surge grows bigger and more intense until the entire ensemble is wailing at top volume -- and the soprano sings a high D at the top of her range. The innermost movement, the eponymous Darkening, Then Brightening creates imperfect intonation (out-of-tuneness) for an imperfect world. The solo flute, clarinet, and saxophones play gentle multiphonics (utilizing the “wrong” fingering to get two notes from an instrument that can normally only play one) that can never truly be in tune, against which the rest of the ensemble, along with the soprano, have to navigate. They have to try, much like the protagonist of the songs, to find beauty in a world that cannot be perfected.” Program Notes by Christopher Cerrone
Christopher Cerrone is internationally acclaimed for his compositions. His work is characterized by a subtle handling of timbre and resonance, a deep literary fluency, and a flair for multimedia collaborations. Cerrone's music balances lushness and austerity, immersive textures and telling details, dramatic impact and interiority. His six-time GRAMMY-nominated compositions are utterly compelling and uniquely his own.
Beaufort Scales, an oratorio for voices, electronics, and video, was commissioned and performed by Lorelei Ensemble and premiered at Mass MoCA in November 2023; its recording on Cold Blue Music earned him a GRAMMY nomination. His opera In a Grove (libretto by Stephanie Fleischmann), premiered in March 2022 to sold-out audiences in a co-production by Pittsburgh Opera and LA Opera, directed by Mary Birnbaum. The opera made its New York debut at the PROTOTYPE Festival in January 2025, where The New York Times named it the highlight of the festival, praising: “Cerrone's coolly caressing music, with its eerie haze of electronic and acoustic textures, deepens the mystery and leaves listeners suspended between ambiguity and wonder.”
Recent commissions include The Year of Silence, based on the story by Kevin Brockmeier, for the Louisville Symphony and baritone Dashon Burton; A Body, Moving, a brass concerto for the Cincinnati Symphony; Breaks and Breaks, a violin concerto for Jennifer Koh and the Detroit Symphony; The Insects Became Magnetic, an orchestral work with electronics for the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and The Air Suspended, a piano concerto for Shai Wosner and a consortium of American orchestras. Upcoming projects include new large-scale works for the LA Philharmonic, Roomful of Teeth, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and The Crossing.
Cerrone's first opera, Invisible Cities, a 2014 Pulitzer Prize finalist, received its fully staged world premiere in a production by The Industry, directed by Yuval Sharon, in Los Angeles's Union Station, where it played to sold-out audiences over 22 performances. Both the film and opera are available as CDs, DVDs, and digital downloads. In July 2019, New Amsterdam Records released his sophomore effort, The Pieces that Fall to Earth, featuring collaborations with the LA-based chamber orchestra Wild Up, to widespread acclaim, including his first GRAMMY nomination. The Arching Path (2021, In a Circle Records), featuring performances by Timo Andres, Ian Rosenbaum, Lindsay Kesselman, and Mingzhe Wang, earned him his second GRAMMY nomination in 2022. His latest album, Don't Look Down (2025, PENTATONE Records), features collaborations with Sandbox Percussion, pianist Conor Hanick, and mezzo-soprano Elspeth Davis and received three GRAMMY nominations. The Washington Post praised the title work: “Cerrone is a composer with poetry and wit to spare, and both are put to use in ‘Don't Look Down,’ one of his most adventurous and inviting pieces to date.”
A recipient of the 2015–2016 Samuel Barber Rome Prize in Music Composition, Cerrone was also a resident at the Laurenz Haus Foundation in Basel, Switzerland from 2022–2023. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. He is published by Schott NY and Project Schott New York. In 2021, he joined the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School. He lives in the Journal Square neighborhood of Jersey City with his wife and their young son.
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