Radiant Glow from Alpenglow by Stacy Garrop Concert Band - Sheet Music

SKU: PR.11540437F

UPC: 680160700318. 11x17 inches.

The first time I saw an alpenglow, I had no idea what it was. It was the late 1980s, and I was a music camp at the base of the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. A few of us got up in the middle of the night so we could hike to a vantage point at the foot of Longs Peak, to watch the sun rise without any trees obstructing our view. Even though we had a few more minutes to go before the sun breached the horizon, when I looked up at the face of Longs Peak, it was glowing intensely with a most beautiful peach-pink color. This enchanting vision lasted only about ten minutes, after which the color faded as the sun rose. Throughout the next thirty years, whenever I returned to the Rocky Mountain National Park, I would occasionally catch this pre-dawn light show in all its glory. An alpenglow is an optical phenomenon that is visible on high altitude mountains. It happens twice daily, right before the sun rises and right after it sets. The earth’s atmosphere scatters the sun’s light, allowing particular wavelengths of light through and blanketing the mountains in rich hues of peach, pink, red, and purple. Alpenglow, my double concerto for alto saxophone, tuba, and wind ensemble, follows the sun as it rises through its morning alpenglow in movement 1 to its journey across the sky in movement 2. In Radiant Glow (movement 3), the sun slips under the horizon, giving way to a most radiant alpenglow. As the alpenglow fades and twilight envelops the earth, stars shimmer in the night sky. In 2025, I arranged RADIANT GLOW into a stand-alone piece for wind ensemble only. The solos originally performed by the soloists have now been spread across the wind ensemble. My thanks to Scott Teeple (Director of Bands, University of Wisconsin-Madison) for the suggestion, and to Robert Taylor (Director of Bands, Northwestern University) and the Northwestern University Symphonic Wind Ensemble for giving the world premiere of Radiant Glow. -S.G.