Shadow on the Sun

Project Leader: Lawrence Dillon (Composer-in-Residence, UNCSA, School of Music)

Project Description: Shadow on the Sun will be a musical composition for wind ensemble that confronts certain paradoxes in solar phenomena. The title of the work is shorthand for phenomena that seem quite simple on the surface, but are actually quite puzzling. A shadow on the sun is easy to imagine, yet impossible to create. In the same way, scientists have observed that the sun’s

UNCSA Composer-in-Residence Lawrence Dillon Debuts "Shadow on the Sun" on March 5th.

corona is hotter than its surface, yet they have not yet been able to find a satisfactory explanation for that phenomenon. As the work is being composed, rehearsed and performed, the composer will make classroom visits (as invited by collaborating instructors at UNCSA and Reynolds), and at least one “public” seminar at which the composition, the current state of solar studies, and associated issues of such an art-science collaboration will be discussed by the composer and Eric Carlson, a physicist from Wake Forest University. More about project HERE.

Key dates: “Shadow on the Sun” debutes at UNCSA Wind Ensemble concert, March 5th, 7:30PM, Steven Center

Collaborators: Eric Carlson (Physics faculty, Wake Forest University); Michael Dodds (Conductor, UNCSA Wind Ensemble & School of Music faculty, UNCSA); Michael Wakeford (UAP faculty, UNCSA); Nicole Babocsi (Physics faculty, RJ Reynolds High School); Janna Levin (Science faculty, UNCSA)