Sunset City (2023)

for Trumpet and Percussion

Duration: 12 minutes

Performed by Christopher Probst, Trumpet, and Matthew Jordan, Percussion

Commissioned by: Christopher Probst, Trumpet, and Matthew Jordan, Percussion, Jacksonville State University

and consortium:

Deborah Caldwell, Trumpet

Jonathan Bagley, Trumpet

Alexander Sanso, Trumpet

Joseph Spearman, Percussion

Ryan Smith, Percussion

Julia Ryan, Percussion

Program Note 

The inspirations for the work are both secular and sacred: they include John Sloan’s painting, “West Twenty-third street,” and selected verses from the psalms and canticles of Catholic Vespers (evening prayer). For me, the painting and verses are connected, and I offer them here as a meditation to inspire performance and listening. The verses are are marked on the sections of the score that they inspired:

Oh God, come to our aid.

Oh Lord, make haste to help us.

Introductory Verse

My soul magnifies the Lord,

and my spirit rejoices in God, my salvation.

Luke 1:46–47 (Magnificat)

I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord.

Our feet shall stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem.

Psalms 122:1–2

There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.

Psalms 46:4

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalms 46:10