Aurora
Joel Thoor Engström, commissioned by Brassmusik Skåne for the 45th European Brass Band Championships 2023 Malmö, Sweden

Aurora was the Roman goddess of the dawn. Every day she opened the gates of the east with her rosy fingers and riding her chariot in a glowing mantel across the sky, accompanied by children, she announced the coming arrival of her brother, Sol (the sun). The natural phenomenon Aurora Borealis (or ”northern lights”) is what inspired the Romans to this personification of the dawn and it can be a mysterious thing to behold, of both beauty and awe. 
The dawn can be a symbol for many things, something beginning as well as something ending. The age-old message of Aurora could therefore be considered timeless. Her call amid the joyous dance of the children of the stars that a new hope, a new light is on its way can be a comforting notion to all in the face of hardships.
This piece is in three movements, played attacca. Though not written with a programmatic intent, the writing process has evoked my thoughts on the symbolic themes of the Roman myth; the setting of an unstable and uncertain scene - like an endless fall - in the first movement, followed by a waiting and the ”kindling of light” in the second, finishing with a festive song of praise in the third.
One of the key musical thematic features of this piece is a harmonic progression (first heard in the trombone section at bar 16). It twists and turns around its axis like the waves of the northern lights, or the turns of Auroras chariot. Throughout the piece, its harmonic ”magnetic fields” are constantly pulling and shaping the music into new forms.