Organic and, at every level, concerned with transformations and connections, the carefully sculpted and fashioned musical materials of Sun Dance are agile and spirited, and their flexibility allows pathways to braid harmonic, rhythmic, and contrapuntal elements that are constantly transformed — at times whimsical and light, at times jazzy, at times almost Ravel or Stravinsky-ballet-like, at times layered and reverberating with lyrical resonance, pirouettes, fulcrum points, and effervescence. “Sun Dance for orchestra, a newly composed prelude to Beethoven 6, is anything but quiet. It’s a collision with the rainbow…" Rita Kohn, NUVO