Sean William Calhoun | Composer and pianist

Escapade in Blue and Gold is inspired by the ESCAPADE (ESCApe and Plasma Acceleration and Dynamics Explorers) mission to send to a pair of identical satellites to Mars to measure the structure of the planet’s magnetosphere, how it interacts with solar wind, and how both affect Mars’s atmosphere. ESCAPADE uses two probes — named “Blue” and “Gold” — to take measurements at different points in orbit and measure how effects propagate around the planet. The first movement, Parallel Through the Void begins with the rapid ascent of leaving Earth’s gravity well, before emerging into space. Much of the movement has the flutes paralleling and imitating each other while stars glimmer in the background. The vigor from the opening returns briefly at the end as the two satellites approach their orbits around Mars. In Magnetosphere in Stereo, the flutes play in canons, with one flute playing the same music the other played, but slightly later. Just as a main benefit of having two satellites is the potential to note when the second measurement deviates from what would have been predicted based on the first, in each section, there is a point at which the canon shifts — the second flute continues to play in canon, but shifts to a different pitch interval (sometimes also a different time interval) relative to the first. Escapade in Blue and Gold was composed for flutist Laura Lentz.