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134340 (2008)

Instrumentation: fl/cl/a.sx/hn/tpt/perc/vn/va/vc
Duration: 2'
Commission: Sonar New Music Ensemble
Premiere: Sonar New Music Ensemble, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD (April 2008)

In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified Pluto such that it was no longer considered one of the nine major planets in the Solar System. Accordingly, Pluto joined asteroids and comets on the list of minor planets, where it was given the numerical designation 134340. The melodic material for 134340 emerges from the pitch classes represented by these numbers. The music is meant to evoke a kind of otherworldly loneliness brought on by the pangs of celestial rejection.

134340 was commissioned by the SONAR New Music Ensemble as the final movement of The Planets, to be premiered alongside images from the Hubble Space Telescope at the Graham Auditorium of the Walters Art Museum on April 11, 2008.