Sonnenaufgang – Sun Rise

for jazz trio and orchestra

It was early in the morning on the island La Palma in the Canaries. We were on the highest mountain, 2400 metres above sea level, and the splendour of the stars in the night sky was gradually fading into dawn. Then the first sunrays flashed on the horizon, breathtakingly beautiful. For a moment we felt like kings of the world, sublime, at one with nature.

With this impression still fresh in mind, I wrote the theme of Sonnenaufgang (Sunrise) shortly afterwards. The composition was created in the months that followed, between December 2002 and August 2003. It is my third piece for jazz trio and orchestra, and was commissioned by the Musikkollegium Winterthur and their conductor Jac van Steen.

Sonnenaufgang – a journey starts, like a day, like a life. The pulsating rhythm surges forward, always returning, and on the way various things happen: Many colours become visible, moods are lived through, some of which are only short-lived. Lust for life, intensity, melancholy feelings too. Then the leaving of normality, the “dropping out”, that leads to a completely free part for the trio, and finally the return of the sun theme. But different, more subtle, transfigured, liberated.

„Sonnenaufgang“ has been performed many times with my great collegues Arild Andersen and Patrice Héral, and most often the composition was followed by „Choral “ and „Sehnsucht “.

• Arild Andersen
• Markus Stockhausen
• Patrice Héral

We have produced a double CD from the live recording of a concert with the Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken under the direction of my friend Christoph Poppen, and has been released in June 2009 under the title SYMPHONIC COLOURS.