from Helios
Helios is a musical exploration of our solar system. The libretto is inspired by the Greek and Roman gods for which the planets are named, the science of each planetary body, and the faith in unanswered questions we have as humans. The idea for this piece was born on a tour with Cantus back in 2013. I was thinking about how to combine my passions together in music, and I thought I should write a choral cycle based on the planets. Over the course of the next 6 years I researched the solar system and started to piece together the libretto movement by movement.
In “Pluto” we stand at the border of chaos, ready to jump in. Patricia Monaghan has us believe that chaos can be beautiful, that it offers us more exciting choices than control. The music brings us into chaos immediately, each section in their own rhythmic pattern, surging and combining to make something greater.
--Tim Takach